THE  ART  OF 
THE  LOW  COUNTRIES 


THE  ART  OF 
THE  LOW  COUNTRIES 


STUDIES 


BY 


WILHELM  R.  VALENTINER 


1 1 


TRANSLATED    BY 

MRS.  SCHUYLER  VAN  RENSSELAER 


ILLUSTRATED 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1914 


VJ> 


Copyright,  1914,  by 

DOUBLEDAY,  PaGE  &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  thai  of 

translation  into  foreign  lanffuages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


To 
WILHELM  BODE 


345074 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

THIS  American  edition  of  Aus  der  niederland- 
ischen  Kunst,  which  is  to  appear  simultaneously 
in  Germany  (Bruno  Cassirer,  Berhn),  contains 
two  articles  that  are  not  included  in  the  German  edition : 
the  one  on  Go  vert  and  Raphel  Camphuysen,  which  was 
first  published  in  Art  in  America,  and  the  hitherto 
unpublished  list  of  the  Rembrandts  in  American  collec- 
tions. 

Several  of  the  other  articles  were  first  published  in 
German,  French,  or  Enghsh  periodicals:  the  one  on 
Quentin  Metsys  in  Les  Anciens  Arts  de  Flandres,  Rem- 
brandt at  the  Latin  School  in  the  Jahrbuch  der  konighch- 
preussischen  Kunstsammlungen,  Rembrandt's  Blinding 
of  Samson  in  the  Burlington  Magazine,  and  Rembrandt's 
Representations  of  Susanna,  part  of  the  article  on  van 
Dyck,  and  the  one  on  Rubens  in  the  Zeitschrift  fur 
bildende  Kunst. 

The  lists  of  the  paintings  by  Rembrandt,  Rubens,  and 
van  Dyck  in  American  collections  are  possibly  not  com- 
plete. Although  most  of  the  works  of  these  artists 
that  have  come  from  Europe  during  the  last  twenty 
years  have  been  traced  to  public  or  private  collections, 

vii 


AUTHOR  S    PREFACE 

there  may  be  some  in  private  hands  that  are  still  un- 
known to  me. 

I  feel  it  to  be  a  piece  of  good  fortune  that  a  book 
written  in  a  foreign  language  should  be  presented  to 
the  public  in  a  translation  which  not  only  does  full 
justice  to  the  author's  meaning  but  has  a  charm  of  its 
own,  and  I  beg  to  express  to  Mrs.  Schuyler  Van  Rens- 
selaer my  most  grateful  appreciation. 

WiLHELM   R.    VaLENTINER. 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art, 
New  York. 
June,  1914. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE 

IT  should  be  explained,  I  think,  that  as,  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  Mr.  Valentiner  remained  in  Ger- 
many to  do  his  part  for  his  country  as  a  volunteer, 
he  has  seen  none  of  the  pages  of  this  book  in  type. 
Nor  has  he  seen  in  their  present  form  any  of  the  il- 
lustrations, which,  owing  to  the  different  size  of  the 
American  volume,  have  necessarily  been  made  anew. 
Before  he  left  New  York,  however,  he  read  in  the  manu- 
script almost  the  whole  of  the  translation,  and  sanc- 
tioned the  few  changes  which  would  be  found  were  it 
compared  with  the  original. 

It  was  not  possible  to  translate  more  literally  the 
German  title  of  the  book,  Aus  der  niederlandischen 
Kunst.  In  English  "  the  Netherlands  "  is  the  true  name 
of  the  kingdom  to  which,  colloquially,  we  give  the  name 
of  its  chief  provinces,  Holland.  "The  Low  Countries" 
is  the  only  English  term  that  covers  the  Flemish  as  well 
as  the  Dutch  provinces,  Belgium  as  well  as  the  Nether- 
lands. This  distinction  has,  of  course,  been  respected 
in  the  text  as  well  as  in  the  title  of  the  book. 

The  names  of  many  Dutch  and  Flemish  artists  were 
written  in  their  time  in  diverse  ways,  and  are  so  written 

ix 


TRANSLATOR  S    PREFACE 

in  our  own.  I  have  been  careful  to  preserve  the  forms 
selected  by  Mr.  Valentiner  excepting  in  a  few  cases 
where  another  form  chances  to  be  much  more  familiar 
to  the  readers  of  English.  In  writing  the  names  of 
Dutchmen  and  Flemings  I  have,  as  is  proper,  written 
van  with  a  small  v,  but  in  citing  American  names  of 
Dutch  origin  I  have  used,  as  is  customary  with  us,  a 
capital  V. 

M.  G.  Van  Rensselaer. 

9  West  Tenth  Street, 
New  York, 

September,  1914. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Author's  Preface vii 

Translator's  Preface ix 

Linear  Composition  in  Dutch  Art 3 

The  Church  Architecture  of  the  Netherlands  in 

the  Middle  Ages 11 

The  Haarlem  School  of  Painting  in  the  Fifteenth 

Century 31 

The  Satirical  Work  of  Quentin  Metsys        ...  88 

The  Brothers  Govert  and  Raphel  Camphuysen  95 

Dutch  Ceramic  Tiles 117 

Rembrandt  at  the  Latin  School 130 

Rembrandt's  Blinding  of  Samson 151 

Rembrandt's  Representations  of  Susanna  .      .      .  164 

Works  by  Rubens   in   American   Collections     .  174 

Works  by  van  Dyck  in  American  Collections     .  199 

Bibliographical  Notes 223 

Appendices : 

I.  List   of  Works  by   Haarlem   Painters   of   the 

Fifteenth  Century 229 

n.  List  of  Works  by  Rubens  in  American  Col- 
lections       235 

IH.  List    of    Works   by   Van   Dyck   in    American 

Collections 238 

IV.  List    of    Works   by   Rembrandt   in   American 

Collections 242 

[xi] 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

linear  composition  in  dutch  art 
Dirk  Bouts,  The  Feast  of  the  Passover  . 

Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  Berlin. 

Lucas  van  Leyden,  Ecce  Homo 

Engraving. 

Rembrandt,  Ecce  Homo       .... 

Etching. 

Ter  Borch,  The  Fortune  Teller  . 

Albertina,  Vienna. 

JoNGKiND,  River  View 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York. 


FACING 
PAGB 

3 
4 
6 
8 
10 


THE   CHURCH   ARCHITECTURE   OF   THE   NETHERLANDS 

P. .  Saenredam,    Church    of    St.     Mary, 

Utrecht 12 

Amsterdam. 

P.     Saenredam,     Church     of     St.     Mary 

Utrecht 14 

Amsterdam. 

Church  of  St.  Servatius,  Maastricht    .        .       18 

Church  of  St.  Pancras,  Leyden       ...       20 

[xiii] 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

G.  Berkneyde,  Church  of  St.  Bavon,  Haarlem   22 

London. 

P.  Saenredam,  Church  of  St.  Bavon,  Haar- 
lem        26 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Choir,  Church  of  St.  Bavon,  Haarlem.        .       26 


the  haarlem  school  of  painting  in  the 
fifteenth  century 

Dirk  Bouts,  Madonna  and  Child    ...       88 

National  Gallery,  London. 

Dirk  Bouts,  The  Gathering  of  the  Manna      40 

Pinakothek,  Munich. 

Dirk  Bouts,  St.  Christopher     .        .        .        .42 

Pinakothek,  Munich. 

Dirk  Bouts,  Portrait  of  a  Man      ...       44 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York. 

OuwATER,  The  Raising  of  Lazarus  .        .       46 

Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  Berlin. 

Follower  of  Dirk  Bouts,  Madonna  and  Child      48 

Collection  of  Mr.  Stephenson  Clarke,  Hayward  Heath,  England. 

Follower  of  Dirk  Bouts,  The  Raising  of 

Lazarus 50 

Mexico. 

Follower  of  Dirk  Bouts,  The  Sibyl  and  the 

Emperor  Augustus 52 

Staedel  Institute,  Frankfort. 

Follower  of  Dirk  Bouts,  The  Marriage  of 

Joseph  and  Mary 54 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

[xiv] 


LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

In  the  Manner  of  Geertgen,  Portrait  of  the 

Burgomaster  of  Schiedam  ....   58 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Geertgen,  Pieta 60 

Hof  Museum,  Vienna. 

Geertgen,  The  Adoration  of  the  Magi        .       62 

Rudolfinum,  Prague. 

Geertgen,  St.  John  the  Baptist      .        .        .       64 

Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  Berlin. 

In   the   Manner   of   Geertgen,   St.   Martin      68 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Master  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy,  The 

Crucifixion 72 

Rijks  Museum,  Amsterdam. 

Master  of  The  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy,  The 

Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy      ....       74 

Rijks  Museum,  Amsterdam. 

Gerard  David,  The  Virgin  and  St.   John  .       76 

Museum,  Antwerp. 

Jan  Mostaert,  The  Sibyl  and  the  Emperor 

Augustus 84 

Museum,  Antwerp. 

Jacob  Cornelisz,  The  Crucifixion  .       .       86 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 


THE   satirical  WORK   OF   QUENTIN   METSY8 

Quentin  Metsys,  Old  Man  Dancing      .       .       88 

Uffizi,  Florence. 

Quentin  Metsys,  Three  Men  Carousing      .       90 

UflBzi,  Florence. 

Ixv] 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

QuENTiN  Metsys,  Seduction        .        .        .        .       91 

Collection  of  the  Countess  Pourtales,  Paris, 

QuENTiN   Metsys,    St.  Jerome     ....       92 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

THE   BROTHERS   GOVERT   AND   RAPHEL   CAMPHUYSEN 

Go  VERT    CaMPHUYSEN,    PORTRAIT    GrOUP      .  .100 

Museum,  Stockholm. 

GovERT  Camphuysen,  Hen  Alarmed  by  a  Cat     104 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

GovERT  Camphuysen,  The  Halt  at  the  Tavern     106 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

GovERT    Camphuysen,  The   Farm   Near   the 

Village 108 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Raphel  Dirksz  Camphuysen,  Cattle      .        .112 

Collection  of  Mr.  John  D.  McHhenny,  Philadelphia. 

Raphel  Dirksz  Camphuysen,  Cattle  Near  a 

Castle 114 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 
DUTCH   CERAMIC   TILES 

PiETER  de  Hooch,  Interior  (showing  tiles)  .     118 

Rijks  Museum,  Amsterdam. 

Tiles 122 

About   1580-1630.     Italian  Influence. 

Tiles 124 

About   1580-1630.    Italian  Influence. 

Tiles 124 

About  1650.    Chinese  Influence. 

[xvi] 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Blue  and  White  Tiles 126 

About  1630-1670. 

Blue  and  White  Tiles 128 

About  1630-1670. 

Polychrome  Tiles 128 

A.  About  1725.     B.  About  1750. 

REMBRANDT    IN    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

Rembrandt,  Diana  and  Callisto      .        .        .     136 

In  the  possession  of  the  author.  New  York. 

Rembrandt,  The  Rape  of  Europa    .        .        .     138 

Collection  of  Herr  Kappel,  Berlin. 

Rembrandt,  The  Rape  of  Proserpine    .        .140 

Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  Berlin 

Rembrandt,  A  Scholar 148 

Print  Room,  Dresden. 

Rembrandt's  blinding  of  samson 
Rembrandt,  The  Blinding  of  Samson     .        .      156 

Staedel  Institute,  Frankfort. 

Rembrandt,  The  Blinding  of  Samson  (detail)     160 

Staedel  Institute,  Frankfort. 

Rembrandt,  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross  162 

Print  Room,  Berlin. 

Rembrandt's  representations  of  susanna 
P.  Lastman,  Susanna  and  the  Elders    .        .164 

Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  BerUn. 

Rembrandt  (after  lastman),  Susanna  and  the 

Elders 164 

Print  Room,  Berlin. 

[xvii] 


LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Rembrandt,  Susanna  and  the  Elders    .       .     166 

Print  Room,  Berlin. 

Rembrandt,  Susanna  and  the  Elders    .        .166 

Print  Room,  Amsterdam. 

Rembrandt,  Susanna 168 

Mauritshuis,  The  Hague. 

Rembrandt,  Susanna  and  the  Elders    .        .     170 

Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  Berlin. 

Rembrandt,  Susanna  and  the  Elders    .        .     172 

Print  Room,  Berlin. 


works  by  rubens  in  american  collections 
Rubens,  Romulus  and  Remus    ....     176 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Rubens,  Portrait  of  a  Man  and  His  Wife     178 

Collection  of  Mrs.  R.  D.  Evans,  Boston. 

Rubens,  Wolf  and  Fox  Hunt    ....     180 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York. 

Rubens,  A  Feast  of  the  Gods  .  .        .184 

Collection  of  Mrs.  Untermyer,  Yonkers,  New  York. 

Rubens,   The   Entrance   of   Henri   IV   into 

Paris 188 

Collection  of  Mrs.  J.  W.  Simpson,  New  York. 

Rubens,  Portrait  of  Heliodoro  de  Barrera    190 

Collection  of  Mr.  F.  T.  Fleitmann,  New  York. 

Rubens,  The  Fall  of  Icarus     .        .       .        .192 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Rubens,  The  Rape  of  the  Sabines         .       .194 

Collection  of  Mr.  P.  A.  B.  Widener,  Philadelphia. 

[  xviii  ] 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Rubens,  The  Reconciliation  of  the  Romans 

AND  Sabines 196 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnsoa,  Philadelphia. 

Rubens,  Landscape 198 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Rubens,  Cows 198 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 


works  by  van  dyck  in  american  collections 
Van  Dyck,  An  Apostle        .        .        .        .        .199 

In  Private  Ownership,  New  York. 

Van  Dyck,  Study  Head 200 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Van  Dyck,  The  Repentant  Magdalene  201 

Collection  of  Mr.  J.  G.  Johnson,  Philadelphia. 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  Frans  Snyders  202 

Collection  of  Mr.  H.  C.  Frick,  New  York. 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  the  Marchesa  Durazzo    204 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York. 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  Lucas  van  Uffelen     206 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York. 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  the  Marchesa  Brig- 

nole-Sala 208 

Collection  of  Mr.  P.  A.  B.  Widener,  Philadelphia. 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  the  Marchesa  Cat- 

taneo 210 

Collection  of  Mr.  P.  A.  B.  Widener,  Philadelphia. 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  a  Genoese  Lady  212 

Collection  of  Mr.  C.  P.  Taft,  Cincinnati. 

[xix] 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Van  Dyck,  Portrait  of  Viscount  Grandison     214 

Collection  of  Mr.  H.  P.  Whitney,  New  York, 

\ 

Van  Dyck — Portrait  of  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond AND  Lennox 216 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  New  York. 


[xx] 


THE  ART  OF 
THE  LOW  COUNTRIES 


DIRK   BOUTS,    THE    FEAST    OF   THE    PASSOVER 

KAISER   FRIEDRICH   MUSEUM,    BERLIN 


I 

LINEAR  COMPOSITION  IN  DUTCH  ART 

COMING  for  the  first  time  from  Germany  or 
Belgium  into  the  Netherlands,  we  are  surprised 
by  the  grave  and  simple  character  of  the 
landscape,  especially  in  the  regions  where  art  assumed 
its  finest  forms,  the  two  provinces  of  South  and  North 
Holland.  Instead  of  a  hilly  country  clothed  with 
vegetation  of  various  kinds  and  cut  up  into  fields  of 
different  colours,  we  find  wide  monotonous  levels  of 
meadowland  intersected  only  by  narrow  ditches  or 
broader  canals  running  off  toward  the  horizon.  The 
roads,  bordered  by  rows  of  slender  trees,  mostly  elms 
and  ashes,  run  parallel  with  these  intersecting  lines 
or,  along  the  coast,  are  flanked  on  the  seaward  side  by 
sand-dunes  scantily  overgrown.  From  the  slightest 
elevation,  even  from  the  highroad,  we  see  a  symmetrical 
network  of  lines  which,  bounded  in  the  most  impressive 
way  by  the  level  unbroken  sweep  of  the  horizon,  gives 
the  landscape  a  serious  character  instinct  with  the 
quality  which  in  the  language  of  art  we  call  style. 
Only  the  sand-dunes  disturb  the  uniformity,  swelling 
and  sinking  as  though  the  sea  were  repeating  its  rhyth- 

[3] 


THE   AilT   OF   THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

mic  motion  for  a  last  time  on  the  land  and  thus  effecting 
a  transition  to  the  reposefulness  of  the  interior  country. 

The  disposition  of  the  buildings  accords  with  the  way 
in  which  the  land  is  thus  divided  by  horizontal  lines, 
marked  out  into  wide  rectangles.  When  a  village  is 
viewed  from  a  distance  the  roofs  seem  to  cling  close 
to  the  soil  in  continuous  stretches,  for  the  houses  dare 
present  no  wide  expanses  to  the  sea  wind,  and  the  mas- 
sive body  of  a  church,  lifting  the  lines  of  the  houses 
somewhat  higher,  often  makes  more  effect  than  its 
tower.  When  we  walk  the  streets  the  regularity  of  the 
arrangement  grows  still  more  striking.  Even  in  elder 
days  the  houses  were  commonly  placed  side  by  side 
in  straight  rows,  parallel  with  the  walled  canals.  The 
windows  are  so  regularly  inserted  that,  looking  along 
the  fagades,  the  sills  blend  into  long  horizontal  lines 
with  which  the  level  roof -ridges  generally  correspond. 
Since  the  eighteenth  century  these  roof-ridges  have  for 
the  most  part  supplanted  the  more  ancient,  less  weather- 
proof gables,  and  now  they  assist  the  effect  of  breadth 
in  the  houses.  In  the  larger  buildings  string-courses 
of  lighter  coloured  stone  usually  aid  the  horizontal 
accentuation.  In  contrast  are  the  determining  per- 
pendiculars —  the  jambs  of  the  windows,  the  dividing 
lines  between  house  and  house,  the  trunks  of  the  trees 
along  the  canals,  and  the  piles  that  at  intervals  reinforce 
their  retaining  walls. 

The  ground-plan  of  the  individual  house,  like  that 
of  the  town  or  village,  is  extremely  simple,  and  may  as 
a  rule  be  resolved  into  a  few  geometrical  figures  for 
which  the  lines  of  the  canals  supply  the  main  axes. 
These  arrangements  go  back  to  earlier  periods  when  the 

[4] 


r  ''  "■r"" 


LINEAR   COMPOSITION    IN    DUTCH   ART 

unlikeness  of  the  plans  of  house  and  town  to  those  of 
neighbouring  countries,  and  especially  to  the  much  more 
complicated  plans  of  Germany,  was  already  apparent. 

This  intimate  relationship  in  style  to  the  landscape 
sprang  in  a  great  degree  from  practical  necessity.  The 
canals,  straight-lined  from  the  first  of  course,  supplied, 
as  has  been  said,  the  keynote  for  a  severely  regular  way 
of  building,  and  the  damp  insalubrious  climate  of  the 
lowland  prohibited  the  angles  and  bays  of  the  German 
dwelling-house.  An  effect  of  cleanliness  and  symmetry 
made  up  for  the  lack  of  an  expression  of  comfort  in  the 
exterior  of  such  houses. 

Their  interiors  corresponded  to  their  rectilinear 
plans.  Reconstructing  an  apartment  of  the  typical 
time  of  the  seventeenth  century,  we  wonder  at  the 
bare,  straight-lined  arrangement.  A  square  fireplace 
occupies,  perhaps,  the  centre  of  one  wall,  a  pair  of 
plainly  framed  pictures  or  maps  hanging  symmetri- 
cally beside  it.  In  the  corner  a  stiffly  shaped  chair 
stands  on  a  podium;  the  whitewashed  wall  behind  it  is 
covered  by  a  rectangular  piece  of  ornamented  leather, 
and  the  other  walls  are  divided  by  the  decided  lines  of 
the  windows,  under  which  stands  a  simple  table,  and 
those  of  the  door,  the  great,  widely  projecting  wardrobe, 
and  the  cupboard  containing  the  bed. 

Going  a  step  farther,  from  the  practical  to  the  artistic, 
and  considering  either  monumental  architecture  or  the 
industrial  arts,  we  find  the  same  sense  of  style.  The 
great  Gothic  churches  and  municipal  halls;  the  build- 
ings of  both  the  chief  architects  of  the  Late-Renais- 
sance and  Baroque  periods,  Hendrik  de  Keyser  and 
Jacob  van  Campen;  the  modern  buildings  of  Berlage, 

[5] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

the  architect  of  the  Amsterdam  Exchange;  all,  com- 
pared with  the  contemporaneous  structures  of  neigh- 
bouring countries,  have  a  bald  and  simple  character  — 
a  plan  that  may  be  resolved  into  a  few  large  rectangles 
and  an  elevation  where  the  vertical  and  horizontal  lines 
of  construction  are  plainly  shown  and  the  undecorated 
fields  of  walls  are  emphasized.  Or  let  us  consider  cer- 
tain products  of  the  minor  arts  and  crafts.  In  the 
designing  of  furniture  there  is  now  a  return  —  with  a 
modern  interpretation,  it  is  true  —  to  the  principles  of 
that  Baroque  art  which  in  Holland,  with  its  strongly 
constructional  shapes  and  its  simple  geometrical  or- 
namentation, differed  in  so  radical  a  way  from  the 
pompously  contorted  forms  it  assumed  in  other  lands. 
Old  Dutch,  like  modern  Dutch,  bookbinding  is  also 
marked  by  a  love  for  linear  patterns  sparsely  filling  the 
field.  The  outer  lines  follow  the  edge  of  the  cover,  and 
toward  the  middle  surround  a  few  diagonally  placed 
rectangles  one  of  which  contains  the  title.  To  their 
ceramic  tiles,  again,  other  countries  have  given  a  rich 
variety  of  shapes  but  Holland  only  one,  the  square 
shape;  only  in  Holland  does  the  plain  white  ground  play 
so  large  a  part  in  the  general  effect ;  only  here  is  the  pat- 
tern restricted  to  so  small  a  field,  or  is  sameness  in  the 
ornament  —  for  example,  in  the  filling  of  the  corners  — 
so  marked  a  feature  of  the  design. 

But  the  most  striking  proof  of  the  existence,  as  a 
national  characteristic,  of  a  sense  of  style  consistent  in 
respect  to  nature  and  to  art,  speaks  from  the  uncon- 
scious employment  of  the  linear  scheme  of  Dutch  land- 
scape by  the  Dutch  painter  whenever  he  has  concerned 
himself  with  stylized  composition.     This  tendency  has 

[6] 


REMBRANDT,    ECCE    HOMO 

ETCHING 


LINEAR   COMPOSITION    IN   DUTCH   ART 

marked  the  art  of  every  period  frora  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  —  from  Geertgen  van  Haarlem's  to  Lucas  van 
Leyden's  and  Rembrandt's  and  down  to  the  modern 
work  of  Jongkind  and  van  Gogh.  As  in  Italy  the  tri- 
angle, so  in  Holland  the  rectangle,  is  used  by  prefer- 
ence to  turn  a  fragment  of  nature  into  a  composition 
complete  in  itself.  Laterally  the  rectangle  is  formed 
by  architectural  or  natural  side-scenes;  or,  in  the  case 
of  groups,  by  the  vertical  lines  of  their  outermost 
figures  and  those  that  are  prolonged  above  their  heads. 
If  a  general  outline  is  lacking,  separate  parts  of  the 
picture  are  composed  into  rectangles ;  in  the  representa- 
tion of  single  figures  it  may  even  be  that  the  upper  and 
lower  parts  of  the  body  are  enclosed  in  such  a  pattern. 
Usually  the  artist  avoids  putting  the  geometrical  dia- 
gram directly  in  the  centre;  in  the  Baroque  time  es- 
pecially he  pushes  it  to  one  side,  to  preserve  the  effect 
of  the  accidental  in  nature.  Of  course  I  do  not  imply 
that  this  kind  of  composition  may  be  found  in  all  Dutch 
paintings;  but  for  five  centuries,  all  through  the  long 
development  of  this  school  of  art,  it  so  often  reappears, 
particularly  when  the  greatest  masters  are  trying  to  for- 
mulate the  laws  of  composition,  that  it  seems  the  nec- 
essary expression  of  the  sense  of  style  of  the  painters  of 
Holland.  In  the  stead  of  the  innumerable  examples 
that  might  be  given  I  can  mention  only  one  or  two 
pictures  by  a  few  leading  artists. 

A  recognized  trait  of  the  two  Dutch  Primitives  of  chief 
importance,  Dirk  Bouts  and  Geertgen  van  Haarlem,  is 
their  preference  for  making  their  figures,  when  there  are 
many  in  the  composition,  all  of  the  same  height  and 
ranging  them  almost  without  movement  side  by  side,  an 

[7] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

ordering  which  in  itself  emphasizes  the  Hnes  of  height 
and  breadth.  A  typical  example  is  the  Feast  of  the 
Passover  of  Bouts  in  the  Berlin  Museum.  The  fig- 
ures might  be  almost  exactly  enclosed  in  a  quadrangle 
which  is  pushed  somewhat  away  from  the  middle  of 
the  picture  so  that  the  symmetrical  effect  may  not  be 
conspicuous.  Occasionally  we  find  that  the  early 
Dutchmen,  influenced  perhaps  by  compositions  of 
southern  origin,  strive  also  for  the  triangular,  the 
pyramidal,  arrangement;  but  just  these  exceptional 
pictures  prove  that  it  did  not  quite  suit  their  sense  of 
style,  for  emphatic  vertical  lines  accompany  the  diago- 
nal ones  and  enhance  their  effect.  An  instance  of 
this  is  the  Gathering  of  the  Manna  of  Dirk  Bouts,  in 
the  Pinakothek  at  Munich,  with  the  triangular  group 
in  the  centre  and  the  upright  figures  on  either  hand. 

Naturally,  examples  of  stylized  composition  mayit 
most  often  be  found  in  pictures  where  the  figures  arel 
brought  into  harmony  with  the  severe  lines  of  an  archi-fl 
tectural  background.  Well-known  early  pictures  of 
this  kind  are  the  Holy  Fellowship  of  Geertgen  van 
Haarlem  in  the  Rijks  Museum  at  Amsterdam  and,  in 
the  same  collection,  the  Virgo  inter  Virgines,  the  painter 
of  which  we  call  by  its  name.  And  an  engraving  of 
Lucas  van  Ley  den's  with  an  architectural  background 
—  the  Ecce  Homo  —  may  be  cited  as  a  specimen  of  the 
many-figured  compositions  that  were  in  vogue  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Perhaps  a  print 
like  this,  where  amid  long  rows  of  stiff  figures  the  princi- 
pal group  is  scarcely  distinguished,  may  not  strike  us  as 
one  of  the  great  engraver's  happiest  compositions.  But 
if  it  had  not  corresponded  precisely  with  the  Dutch 

[8] 


TER  BORCH,  THE  FORTUNE  TELLER 

ALBERTINA,    VIENNA 


LINEAR    COMPOSITION    IN    DUTCH    ART 

sense  of  style  Rembrandt  would  not  have  imitated  it  a 
century  later  in  a  familiar  etching,  the  large  Ecce  Homo 
of  1655,  where  the  architecture,  built  up  of  rectangles, 
still  more  distinctly  gives  the  keynote  for  the  disposal 
of  the  groups  and  single  figures. 

If  has  often  been  remarked  that  at  the  time  when 
Rembrandt  produced  this  etching,  a  time  when  he  more 
frankly  strove  for  stylized  composition  than  at  an 
earlier  or  a  later  period,  he  seems  in  certain  works  to 
have  combined  his  figures  into  squares.  This  ten- 
dency to  stylizing  he  shared  in  the  sixth  and  seventh 
decades  of  the  seventeenth  century  with  a  number  of 
the  greatest  Dutchmen  such  as  Pieter  de  Hooch,  Jan 
Vermeer,  and  Gerard  Ter  Borch.  It  was  the  time  of 
the  finest  flowering  of  the  art  of  Holland,  when  the 
greatest  ability  expressed  itself  in  the  simplest  possible 
form.  In  choosing  this  form  the  artist,  instinctively 
falling  back  upon  the  art  of  the  best  of  the  early  Dutch- 
men, returned  to  the  accentuation  of  vertical  and 
horizontal  lines.  In  many  exterior  and  interior  views 
by  Pieter  de  Hooch  and  Jan  Vermeer  this  linear  scheme 
is  immediately  apparent  in  the  structure  of  the  houses, 
in  the  decoration  of  the  rooms,  in  the  disposition  of  the 
figures,  even  in  the  construction  of  the  figures  them- 
selves, and  the  rectangle  clearly  shows  as  the  geometri- 
cal basis  upon  which  the  composition  is  built  up. 
Moreover,  a  study  like  the  Fortune  Teller  of  Ter  Borch 
in  the  Albertina  Collection  at  Vienna  —  a  drawing 
which  has  something  almost  academic  in  the  straight 
lines  of  the  contour  and  in  the  adaptation  of  the  body 
to  geometrical  forms  —  is  a  proof  that  the  artist  did 
not  thus  stylize  in  a  wholly  unconscious  way. 

[91 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

In  fact,  the  decline  of  Dutch  painting  followed  very 
quickly  upon  its  most  classical  phase,  for  even  the 
ablest  artists  could  not  long  continue  to  combine 
stylized  design  of  a  large  and  simple  kind  with  a  vital 
rendering  of  nature.  French  art  was  able  to  win  the 
influence  that  it  exerted  upon  Dutch  art  in  the  last 
third  of  the  seventeenth  century  because  it  accorded 
with  the  tendency  of  the  Hollanders  toward  severe 
straight-lined  forms.  In  their  linear  scheme  the  rec- 
tangular gardens  in  the  style  of  Le  Notre,  such  as  we  see 
in  the  backgrounds  of  the  unsatisfactory  late  pictures 
of  Pieter  de  Hooch,  are  not  very  different  from  Dutch 
gardens  of  the  preceding  period,  nor,  in  the  same  sense, 
are  the  columned  porticos  in  which  an  aristocratic 
society  disports  itself  unlike  the  plain  interiors  where 
simple  burgher  folk  took  their  ease.  Only,  the  external 
scheme  no  longer  truthfully  expresses  the  inner  meaning. 

If,  finallj^  we  turn  to  modern  painting  and  seek,  in 
the  work  of  the  ablest  artists,  for  proof  of  a  sense  of 
style  inspired  by  the  landscape  of  Holland,  we  have  no 
trouble  in  finding  examples.  With  Vincent  van  Gogh, 
and  still  more  with  Jongkind,  we  constantly  see  that, 
to  give  repose  to  the  elements  of  the  picture,  they  lay 
stress  upon  the  lines  of  height  and  breadth.  If  these 
painters  are  compared  with  the  Frenchmen  with  whom 
they  grew  up,  their  pronounced  Dutch  character  shows 
distinctly  in  the  differing  linear  arrangement  of  their 
pictures,  and  by  reason  of  this  difference  they  uncon- 
sciously stand  as  supporters  of  the  great  national  tra- 
dition. 


[10] 


II 

THE  CHURCH  ARCHITECTURE  OF  THE 
NETHERLANDS  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 

A  HISTORY  of  architecture  in  the  Netherlands 
/%  would  necessarily  take  into  account  the  results 
X  A.  of  the  unending  struggle  of  the  people  with  the 
encroaching  waters.  It  would  consider  the  achievements 
of  hydraulic  engineering  and  the  influence  that  they 
exerted  upon  architectural  monuments,  for  the  build- 
ing of  canals  and  dikes  helped  both  to  determine 
the  artistic  character  of  the  landscape  and  to  develop 
in  the  architect  the  qualities  that  it  demanded  of  him  — 
a  sense  for  sober  and  correct  ways  of  building,  for  regu- 
larity in  planning,  and  for  the  accurate  estimating  of 
structural  strength. 

The  earliest  constructions  of  which  we  know  in  the 
Netherlands  were  works  of  engineering.  When  Rome 
conquered  the  country  of  the  Batavians  they  were  liv- 
ing upon  hills  which  they  had  thrown  up  along  the 
coast  and  which  still  exist  to-day,  notably  in  Gron- 
ingen  and  Friesland.  So  vast  in  extent  are  these  so- 
called  Terpen  or  Wierden,  in  certain  regions  stretching 
out  for  miles,  that  the  labour  of  building  them  has  been 

[11] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

not  unreasonably  compared  with  the  task  of  erecting 
the  pyramids  of  Egypt. 

The  earHest  canals  seem  to  have  been  the  work  of 
the  Romans,  although  a  systematic  development  of 
inland  waterways  was  postponed  to  a  later  day  and 
accomplished  by  the  Netherlanders  themselves.  With 
this  exception  the  Romans  built  in  the  Netherlands 
much  as  they  did  in  their  other  provinces,  constructing 
camps  and  citadels,  market-places,  temples,  and  ceme- 
teries, which,  of  course,  can  hardly  be  credited  to  Dutch 
architecture.  Some  of  them  still  survive  in  ruins  — 
submerged  in  the  sea  like  the  Nehalennia  temple  near 
Domburg  and  the  citadel  of  Brittenburg  near  Katwijk- 
Buiten,  or  on  inland  sites  like  the  Forum  of  Hadrian 
near  Yoorburg  and  the  citadel  of  Romburg  at  Leyden. 

In  the  Netherlands,  as  in  other  Germanic  countries, 
the  earliest  efforts  at  self-expression  in  art  followed  the 
great  racial  migrations  which,  fertilizing  the  land  with 
new  blood,  developed  new  powers  and  energies.  Of 
the  result,  however,  exceptionally  little  is  known  in 
just  these  regions.  The  Franks,  the  Saxons,  and  the 
Frisians  distributed  themselves  over  the  territory  of 
the  Holland  of  to-day  in  a  way  that  held  good  ever 
after,  and  in  the  planning  of  their  houses  soon  displayed 
their  racial  peculiarities.  Even  now  the  farmsteads  of 
the  three  races  differ,  in  so  far  that  among  the  Frisians 
the  dwelling  is  separated  from  the  stables  and  barns 
and  among  the  Saxons  is  united  with  them  under  one 
roof,  while  among  the  leading  people,  the  Franks,  the 
separation  of  the  domestic  and  the  farm  buildings  is 
but  partially  effected. 

The  houses  still  had  no  touch  of  art.     They  were 

[12] 


1 


p.    SAENREDAM,    CHURCH    OF   ST.    MARY,    UTRECHT 

AMSTERDAM 


CHURCH   ARCHITECTURE    IN    THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

caves,  pile-dwellings,  or  mere  huts  of  mud  and  wattle. 
Although  nothing  is  left  of  them  we  may  imagine  their 
aspect,  for  even  now  in  certain  parts  of  Holland  similar 
primitive  ways  of  building  survive  —  for  example,  at 
Assen,  where  pile-dwellings  are  still  erected,  and  at 
Maastricht,  where  houses  are  excavated  in  the  soft  marl 
of  the  Pietersberg. 

The  first  impulse  toward  a  somewhat  more  ambitious 
manner  of  building  was  the  desire  for  a  waterproof 
structure  for  the  worship  of  the  gods.  Early  Christian 
sources  declare  that,  especially  in  Friesland  and  Dren- 
the,  there  were  numerous  heathen  temples  containing 
statues  that  stood  on  the  high  altars  in  honour  of  Wotan 
and  Thor.  They  also  tell  how  the  monks  came,  shattered 
the  figures,  overturned  the  altars,  and  in  the  stead  of 
the  temples  erected  small  wooden  churches,  and  how, 
when  the  heathen  took  up  arms,  returned,  and  destroyed 
the  churches  of  the  little  congregations,  the  conflict  long 
surged  hither  and  thither  before  the  Frisians  aban- 
doned a  religion  which,  as  it  seems  to  us  to-day,  gave  a 
soul  to  local  nature  and  valued  human  wisdom  less  than 
a  sensitiveness  to  the  hidden  life  of  field  and  forest. 

We  may  form  an  approximate  idea  of  the  heathen 
temple  from  recent  comparative  investigations  which 
have  established,  for  the  pre-Carolingian  period,  the 
existence  of  a  common  style  in  all  the  northerly  Ger- 
manic countries  and  have  found  a  clue  to  their  temple 
architecture  in  the  surviving  ancient  churches  of  Ice- 
land. According  to  the  description  given  by  Albrecht 
Haupt, 

They  consisted  of  two  contiguous  rectangular  rooms.  The 
smaller  choir-like  room  was  intended  for  the  erection  of  the  altars 

[131 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

of  the  gods  and  was  the  place  of  actual  sacrifice;  in  the  larger  room 
the  worshippers  assembled,  and  here,  drawn  up  after  the  sacrifice 
in  long  rows  along  the  walls  about  the  central  hearth,  they  cele- 
brated the  sacrificial  feast  under  the  leadership  of  the  priest  who 
had  his  oflBcial  seat  against  the  wall  toward  the  room  in  which  th.e 
altar  stood. 

This  ground-plan  seems  to  have  influenced  the  ar- 
rangement of  the  earHest  Christian  churches.  Indeed, 
it  is  obvious  that,  in  spite  of  all  spiritual  disagreements, 
the  Christian  architect  must  in  practical  life  have  con- 
formed as  much  as  possible  to  existing  conditions.  Ac- 
cording to  Haupt,  the  earliest  wooden  churches  of 
the  Netherlands,  which  can  be  reconstructed  upon  the 
evidence  of  the  oldest  existing  Scandinavian  buildings, 
consisted  like  the  pagan  temple  of  two  rooms  of  unequal 
size,  but  these  rooms  were  connected  at  first  by  a 
narrow  opening  and  later  by  the  chancel-arch  uniting 
choir  and  nave.  It  was  an  influence  from  the  south, 
the  influence  of  the  basilican  type  of  church,  that  first 
developed  a  more  elaborate  arrangement  with  a  narrow 
choir  and  a  broad  nave.  Then  chapels  were  sometimes 
added  to  the  choir,  and  occasionally  a  vestibule  stretched 
in  front  of  the  nave. 

Nor  is  the  existence  of  a  consistent  Early-Germanic 
art  of  the  north  our  only  warrant  for  assuming  analogies 
between  the  early  buildings  of  the  Netherlands  and  of 
Scandinavia.  The  two  countries  were  in  actual  and 
close  relations.  The  Frisians  were  often  allied  with  the 
Northmen,  and  in  the  early  Middle  Ages  several  Dan- 
ish kings  believed  that  they  had  a  right  to  East  Fries- 
land  and  North  Holland.  Moreover,  coins  have  been 
found,  struck  at  Dorestadt  near  Utrecht,  which  show  a 
resemblance  to  those  of  Danish  and  of  Finnish  origin. 

[14] 


p.    SAENREDAM,    CHURCH    OF   ST.    MARY,    UTRECHT 

AMSTERDAM 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE    IN   THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

In  the  Netherlands  Christian  civihzation  spread 
more  tardily  and  more  slowly  than  elsewhere  —  roughly 
speaking,  between  the  sixth  and  the  eighth  centuries; 
and  even  then  it  was  unable  for  a  long  time  to  establish 
firm  roots  except  in  the  southern  parts  of  the  country. 
For  an  understanding  of  the  development  of  Dutch  art 
it  is  important  to  remember  that  during  the  Middle 
Ages  and  even  later  the  Netherlands  lay  on  the  con- 
fines of  European  civilization,  and  that,  strong  though 
the  influence  of  neighbouring  peoples  was  in  the  border 
districts,  frequently  though  the  overlordship  changed 
in  the  Netherlands  themselves,  the  old  stocks  were  able 
to  preserve  their  independence.  Thus  it  had  already 
been  in  Roman  times,  for  although  in  the  days  of 
Drusus  and  Germanicus  the  authority  of  Rome  imposed 
itself  even  upon  the  Frisians,  it  was  a  precarious  power 
as  the  uprising  of  the  Batavians  made  plain.  In  fact, 
Roman  civilization  merely  touched  the  Netherlands. 
Afterward,  the  disseminators  of  Christianity  were  wise 
enough  to  accommodate  themselves  more  to  local  con- 
ditions. In  the  Belgium  of  to-day,  where  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Rome  had  won  a  firmer  footing,  they  established 
their  bishoprics  in  lieu  of  the  old  Roman  provinces  and 
thereby  furthered  the  spread  of  the  Roman  leaven,  but 
farther  north  they  did  not  thus  connect  themselves  with 
the  vague  tradition.  The  only  bishopric  founded  in  the 
northern  Low  Countries,  Utrecht,  lay  in  the  territory 
of  a  purely  Germanic  race  and  could  therefore  soon 
become  a  local  and  a  national  centre.  It  was  a  long 
time,  truly,  before  art  here  attained  to  independent 
utterance.  In  architecture,  as  in  the  other  arts,  the 
beginnings  of  a  national  style  are  not  to  be  discerned 

[15  1 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

until  near  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages,  long  after  the 
artistic  growth  of  the  southern  Low  Countries  had 
reached  maturity.  From  the  time  of  the  advent  of 
Roman  civilization  these  southern  regions  had  main- 
tained a  lead  of  almost  a  hundred  years,  a  lead  that 
was  still  perceptible  in  the  time  of  the  van  Eycks  and 
even  later,  even  in  the  time  of  Rubens.  But  if  a  na- 
tional art  developed  more  slowly  in  the  north,  it  stood 
there  upon  broader  foundations,  for  nothing  had  ham- 
pered the  unfolding  of  the  individuality  of  the  people. 

The  clearest  manifestation  of  its  unlikeness  to  the 
art  of  the  southern  Low  Countries  during  the  first  half 
of  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  adoption  and  adaptation 
of  elements  of  German  —  that  is,  of  Rhenish  and 
Westphalian  —  origin.  One  of  the  earliest  Christian 
churches  of  which  we  hear  in  Holland  was  founded  at 
Utrecht  in  the  eighth  century;  and  the  fact  that  the 
initiative  came  from  Cologne  is  important  as  a  sign- 
post, for  during  the  subsequent  Carolingian  and  Ro- 
manesque periods  Rhenish  architecture  exerted  a 
determining  influence  in  the  Netherlands.  It  was 
from  the  Rhine  that  the  art  of  Charlemagne  reached 
them.  While  they  were  under  this  great  ruler  the 
pohtical  constellations  were  so  favourable  that  it 
seemed  as  though  their  time  for  a  high  development  of 
civilization  had  arrived.  After  he  united  all  western 
Germany  and  the  Netherlands  to  his  empire,  the  regions 
between  Cologne  and  the  mouths  of  the  Rhine  became 
the  heart  of  his  realm.  Aix-la-Chapelle,  as  every  one 
knows,  was  his  favourite  place  of  residence,  and  at  Liege 
a  school  was  founded  that  soon  grew  famous.  When 
one  of  the  important  trade-routes  of  the  empire  led 

[16] 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE   IN    THE   MIDDLE    AGES 

up  along  the  course  of  the  Rhme,  trade  seemed  to 
develop  in  the  Netherlands,  especially  among  the 
Frisians.  Then  arose  the  oldest  mediaeval  building 
that  still  exists  in  Holland,  the  palace-chapel  of  Char- 
lemagne on  the  Valkhof  at  Nymegen,  which,  like  the 
little  cathedral,  often  called  a  chapel,  at  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
was  attached  to  a  palace  with  a  great  banqueting  hall. 
And  that  Carolingian  civilization  did  not  stop  at  this 
point  is  proved  by  a  building  in  the  far  north  of  Holland 
that  was  long  forgotten,  the  Church  of  St.  Walburg  at 
Groningen.  It  was  begun  in  the  year  811  and  was  torn 
down  in  1619,  but  is  preserved  in  old  pictures  that  have 
enabled  Peters  to  reconstruct  its  original  plan.  Deriv- 
ing from  the  cathedral  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  it  had  the 
same  centralized  plan  and  was  of  similar  importance  but, 
like  the  chapel  at  Nymegen,  not  quite  so  large. 

In  spite  of  its  small  size  this  chapel  at  Nymegen 
makes  an  imposing  effect,  greatly  aided  by  its  beautiful 
site  on  the  last  spur  of  the  Rhenish  hills,  the  river 
Waal  running  in  wide  curves  at  the  foot  of  the  slope. 
Above  its  elevated  central  part  lies  a  low  dark  vault 
with  polygonal  sides,  built  of  clumsily  squared  stones 
intermingled  with  bricks  some  of  which  are  Roman 
tiles  bearing  the  stamps  of  the  legionaries.  In  the 
massive  design,  the  colossal  walls,  we  may  trace  the 
spirit  of  the  mighty  but  still  half-barbarous  ruler  of 
Europe  who,  here  as  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  drew  upon  his 
memories  of  the  south,  and  especially  of  Ravenna,  but 
used  them  in  novel  creations  of  a  bold  northern  char- 
acter. 

For  two  centuries  the  buds  of  this  Carolingian  civili- 
zation unfolded  no  farther  in  the  Netherlands.     The 

[17] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

country  could  not  stand  up  against  the  repeated  at- 
tacks of  the  Northmen  who  again  and  again  destroyed 
all  signs  of  renewed  vitality.  Better  times  for  the 
Netherlands  did  not  return  until,  under  the  Hohenstau- 
fens,  architectural  activity  spread  along  the  valley  of 
the  Rhine,  producing  cathedrals  of  the  greatest  beauty. 
Akin  in  style  to  these  Rhenish  structures  were  two 
churches  that  then  arose  at  Maastricht  and  Roermond, 
the  most  important  that  have  been  preserved  in  Hol- 
land from  the  Romanesque  period.  Even  finer,  per- 
haps, was  once  the  Church  of  St.  Mary  at  Utrecht. 
Torn  down  in  the  year  1814,  it  is  shown  in  the  drawings 
of  the  architectural  painters  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
notably  in  those  of  Pieter  Saenredam  and  Lambert 
Doomer  which  have  been  published  by  Hofstede  de 
Groot.  Probably  it  was  erected  by  the  founder  of  the 
cathedrals  of  Mainz  and  Speyer,  the  greatly  gifted 
Emperor  Henry  IV,  in  fulfilment,  if  tradition  speaks 
truly,  of  a  vow  that  he  would  build  a  church  to  the 
Virgin  because  he  had  injured  the  cathedral  of  Milan 
in  taking  the  city.  The  likeness  in  plan  between  St. 
Mary's  and  the  Church  of  San  Ambrogio  at  Milan  may 
be  thought  to  support  this  story.  In  construction  St. 
Mary's,  which  must  have  had  an  importance  for  the 
Romanesque  architecture  of  the  Netherlands  such  as 
the  cathedral  of  Utrecht  had  for  the  Gothic,  was  a 
vestibuled  church  designed  according  to  what  the 
Germans  call  the  gehundene  System  —  that  most  per- 
fect solution  of  the  problems  of  mediaeval  architecture, 
in  which  the  crossing  of  nave  and  transept  is  taken  as 
the  unit  of  construction  and  two  bays  of  the  aisles 
correspond  to  one  in  the  loftier  nave. 

[18] 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE   IN    THE    MIDDLE   AGES 

The  churches  at  Roennond  and  Maastrict  —  the 
finest,  as  has  been  said,  that  remain  from  their  period 
—  are  admirable  examples  of  the  intrinsic  strength  and 
animated  grouping  of  the  fully  developed  Romanesque 
style.  St.  Servatius  at  Maastricht  is  the  more  elabo- 
rate of  the  two  in  design,  and  in  the  Gothic  period 
was  further  enriched  by  the  addition  of  chapels.  The 
massive  structure  with  its  five  towers  —  simple  in 
plan,  splendidly  separating  itself  in  elevation  —  forms 
an  harmonious,  vigorously  animated  silhouette.  The 
double  crypts,  the  dwarf  arcade  around  the  semicircular 
apse,  and  the  square  towers  pierced  by  rows  of  windows 
near  the  top,  are  characteristic  features  of  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  Lower  Rhine  countries,  and  by  way  of 
Maastricht  were  transmitted  to  Belgium  and  especially 
to  Tournai. 

Maastricht  still  possesses  another  great  Romanesque 
building,  the  Church  of  Our  Lady,  important  for  its 
interior  effect  and  particularly  impressive  in  its  great 
crypt  borne  by  three  rows  of  slender  columns.  Out- 
side, however,  it  is  not  comparable  to  St.  Servatius. 
Although  it  dates  from  the  eleventh  century  an  older 
building,  of  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,  was  unskil- 
fully utilized  in  its  construction,  so  that  the  main  front 
now  consists  of  an  over-lofty  featureless  mass  of  wall 
flanked  by  two  small  staircase  turrets. 

Besides  these  buildings  in  the  southern  part  of  Hol- 
land there  must  be  noted  in  the  north,  in  Friesland  and 
Groningen,  a  little  group  of  Romanesque  village  churches 
built  on  an  unusual  plan  which,  as  Dehio  has  pointed 
out,  is  also  to  be  found  in  Anjou  and  in  Westphalia.. 
[They  have  no  aisles,  a  quadrangular  choir  with  a  flat! 

[19] 


IX 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

east-end,  and  barrel  vaults.  The  thick  walls,  sloped 
on  the  outside,  the  small  windows,  and  the  plain  stumpy- 
towers  give  them  a  gloomy  fortress-like  air.  Probably 
these  Angevin  arrangements  were  introduced  from 
Westphalia,  for  the  relations  of  this  region  with  Anjou 
are  apparent  in  other  fields  as  well  as  in  architecture 
and  were  brought  about,  perhaps,  by  the  English  who 
ruled  over  Anjou  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  cen- 
turies. 

If  during  the  first  half  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  Netherlands  is  still  incomplete  and  can- 
not yet  be  separated  from  the  art  of  adjacent  countries, 
from  the  time  of  the  upgrowth  of  the  cities  in  the  thir- 
teenth and  fourteenth  centuries  the  picture  shows  more 
variety,  and  in  the  fifteenth  century  we  find  archi- 
tectural enterprise  as  vigorous  in  the  Netherlands  as  in 
any  of  the  chief  centres  of  Late-Gothic  art.  The  true 
flowering  of  Dutch  mediaeval  church  architecture,  con- 
temporaneous with  the  beginnings  of  the  art  of  paint- 
ing, survives  to-day  in  almost  every  picture  of  a  Dutch 
city,  for  the  principal  church  was  usually  Gothic,  and 
in  most  cases  there  were  also  fortified  towers  or  town 
gates  of  the  same  period.  Numberless  are  the  Gothic 
churches  of  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  but 
here,  to  make  plain  their  general  character,  only  a  few 
of  the  chief  examples  can  be  cited. 

The  finest  of  them  all  is  the  cathedral  at  Utrecht. 
The  incomparable  choir  was  built  at  about  the  same 
time  as  the  cathedral  of  Cologne  and,  indeed,  in  con- 
junction with  it;  the  somewhat  later  brick  tower  speaks 
more  of  Flemish  influence.  This  cathedral  was  a 
beacon  of  the  church  for  the  whole  country,  and  from 

[20] 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE    IN    THE    MIDDLE   AGES 

the  time  of  the  van  Eycks'  Ghent  altar-piece  it 
constantly  appears,  symbolically  introduced,  in  the 
landscape  backgrounds  of  Early-Dutch  pictures.  Most 
of  the  principal  churches  of  the  other  large  cities  of 
Holland  are  known  from  the  landscape  paintings  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  In  the  pictures  of  van 
Goyen,  for  example,  we  usually  see  the  tall  tower  of 
the  Great  Church  of  the  Hague,  now  replaced,  unfortu- 
nately, by  a  clumsy  iron  spire,  or  the  lofty  massive  naves 
of  the  chief  churches  of  Leyden,  St.  Peter's  and  the 
Hooglandsche  Kerk,  also  called  the  Church  of  St. 
Pancras. 

The  distant  views  of  Jacob  Ruisdael  and  the  city 
pictures  of  Gerrit  Berckheyden  have  made  familiar 
the  gigantic  Church  of  St.  Bavon  at  Haarlem  with  its 
graceful  fleche*  The  towers  of  both  the  principal 
Gothic  churches  of  Delft,  the  Old  Church  and  the  New 
Church,  often  rise  beyond  the  courtyards  of  Pieter  de 
Hooch.  And  in  the  backgrounds  of  numerous  paint- 
ings by  Albert  Cuyp  we  meet  the  Great  Church  of 
Dordrecht,  its  unfinished  square  tower  crowned  by  a 
provisional  seventeenth-century  termination.  More- 
over, all  who  have  visited  Holland  must  remember  the 
Old  Church  at  Amsterdam,  for  its  finely  proportioned 
tower  is  a  feature  in  the  first  impression  one  gets  on 
leaving  the  railroad  station,  and  also  the  so-called  New 
Church  on  the  Dam,  only  a  little  later  in  date,  where 

*For  want  of  a  better,  I  use  this  word  to  indicate  the  openwork  spire  which  on 
continental  churches  often  stands  above  the  intersection  of  nave  and  choir.  The 
German  term  is  Dachreiter,  "roof-rider",  explanatory  and  picturesque.  We  may 
suppose  that  there  is  no  good  English  equivalent  (although  "lantern"  is  sometimes 
used)  because  aflecke  rarely  if  ever  occurs  in  England  where  even  the  largest  medi- 
aeval churches  were  kept  so  low  that  a  great  tower  could  be  made  the  central  feature 
of  the  composition.  —  Translator. 

[21] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

the  bare  walls  are  broken  by  enormous  windows  strik- 
ing even  in  an  exterior  view.  With  these  churches  the 
Church  of  St.  James  at  'S  Hertogenbosch  (Bois  de  Due) 
and  the  Church  of  St.  Nicholas  at  Kampen  must  be 
named  as  two  of  the  largest  with  five  aisles.  All  of 
them  date  in  greater  part  from  the  fourteenth  and  the 
end  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  were  finished  in  the 
fifteenth. 

The  character  of  the  Gothic  churches  of  Holland  is 
clearly  revealed  when  we  contrast  them  with  Belgian 
buildings.  To  be  frank,  the  comparison  is  not  in 
Holland 's  favour.  The  cathedrals  of  the  southern  Low 
Countries,  subjected  to  French  influences,  display  all 
the  splendours  of  Late-Gothic  art.  Rich  and  brilliant 
is  the  decoration  of  the  surfaces,  in  animated  fashion 
the  various  parts  of  building  group  themselves  together, 
and  the  pompous  bright  interiors  are  filled  with  a  spirit 
of  joyous  life.  In  Holland  there  are  no  such  intoxicat- 
ing effects  as  in  the  cathedral  of  Antwerp  or  in  St. 
Gudule  at  Brussels.  In  Holland  no  one  has  ever  been 
impelled  to  speak,  as  in  Belgium,  of  the  Flamboyant 
style  or  to  use  the  sonorous  word  "cathedral,"  although 
several  of  the  principal  Dutch  churches  surpass  the 
Flemish  in  size. 

In  fact,  if  we  consider  the  Dutch  churches  only  from 
the  standpoint  of  architectural  history,  they  are  balder 
and  less  interesting  than  the  contemporary  buildings 
of  any  neighbouring  country.  Too  large,  and  almost 
clumsy  and  rustic  of  aspect,  they  look  like  magnified 
village  churches.  Their  construction  shows  no  com- 
plexities, for  their  stone  vaults,  dangerous  undertakings 

[22] 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE    IN   THE   MIDDLE    AGES 

because  of  the  instability  of  the  soil,  were  added,  not 
very  skilfully,  at  a  later  day.  In  many  respects,  more- 
over, these  churches  often  look  unfinished.  The  towers 
in  particular  were  seldom  completed  in  Gothic  days, 
for  the  rise  of  the  cities  in  the  fifteenth  century  was 
followed  by  a  period  of  unrest  and  by  the  religious 
cleavage  which,  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  hin- 
dered the  completion  of  gigantic  religious  edifices. 
And,  it  may  be  added,  beautiful  buildings  often  fail  of 
their  intended  effect  because  of  the  introduction  of  the 
novel  arrangements  of  Protestant  congregations.  Such 
is  the  case  with  the  church  at  Goes,  now  divided  by  a 
wall  through  the  middle  into  two  parts,  and  with  the 
transept  of  the  cathedral  of  Utrecht  which  has  been 
altered  into  a  Reformed  church.  Moreover,  nature 
has  worked  more  destructively  here  than  elsewhere. 
Storms  shattered  certain  towers,  like  the  one  at  Alk- 
maar,  and  the  nave  of  the  cathedral  of  Utrecht;  and  in 
other  buildings  the  original  wooden  ceilings,  generally 
used  instead  of  stone  vaults,  fell  a  prey  to  fire  together 
with  parts  of  the  superstructure  and  of  the  choir. 
Often  the  sandstone  ornamentation  with  which  the 
customary  brickwork  was  at  times  enlivened  has  not 
withstood  the  weather;  and  where  only  sandstone  was 
used,  as  in  the  Maastricht  region,  it  has  so  disintegrated 
as  to  demand  renovations  amid  which  scarcely  anything 
of  the  old  structure  remains. 

In  short,  at  a  first  hasty  glance  there  seems  little 
in  the  way  of  praise  to  be  said  of  these  churches  which, 
now  that  only  a  small  part  of  them  is  occupied  by  the 
congregation,  seem  doubly  arrogant  in  their  excessive 
size.     Nevertheless  it  is  here  that  the  individuality  in 

[23] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

style  of  the  art  of  the  Netherlands  first  expressed  itself, 
earlier  than  in  painting  or  in  sculpture.  Here,  in  the 
still  undeveloped  simplicity  of  a  primitive  art,  we  find 
the  characteristics  which  afterward  came  to  such  ad- 
mirable development  in  the  painting  of  the  great  period 
—  an  innate  strength  proper  to  the  whole  nation,  a 
puritanical  temperament  recognizing  only  realities,  and 
above  all  a  mastery  of  pictorial  effect,  always  better 
understood  by  the  Dutch  than  architectural  effect. 

These  buildings  owe  their  imposing  air  mainly  to  the 
simple  cubical  shape  of  their  parts,  to  the  exceptional 
height  and  breadth  of  the  three  aisles,  which  are  not 
combined  in  any  strictly  prescribed  way,  to  the  great 
undecorated  wall  spaces,  and  to  the  gigantic  undivided 
window  openings.  The  body  of  the  church  usually 
seems  too  large  in  comparison  with  the  tower  which  is 
seldom  finished  and  is  treated,  so  to  say,  for  its  own 
sake  or  is  confused  in  idea  with  sifleche;  too  large  also 
in  comparison  with  the  surrounding  houses  which  we 
know  to  have  been  much  smaller  in  the  old  days  than 
either  French  or  German  houses,  while  the  churches 
yielded  nothing  in  size  to  those  of  other  lands. 

In  village  churches,  especially  in  Zeeland,  strong 
buttresses  flanking  the  walls  and  a  primitive  square  or 
sometimes  six-sided  tower  increase  the  massiveness 
of  effect.  Generally  there  are  buttresses  also  at  the 
corners  of  the  tower,  often  spreading  so  widely  that 
they  seem  to  support  it  on  a  sloping  pedestal.  The 
plain  pointed  windows  with  which  it  is  pierced  on  each 
side  give  an  idea  of  the  great  thickness  of  the  walls, 
due  in  the  beginning  to  the  unskilfulness  of  the  builder 
but  afterward  retained  for  artistic  reasons.     On  the 

[24] 


CHURCH   ARCHITECTURE   IN    THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

other  hand,  in  these  village  churches  and  just  as  often 
in  the  larger  ones  the  windows  of  the  aisles,  being 
carried  very  low  down  as  they  are  in  Dutch  houses, 
add  an  air  of  comfort  to  the  monumental  effect.  One 
advantage  of  the  use  of  wooden  vaults  or  flat  wooden 
ceilings  was  that  the  architect,  with  no  great  weight  to 
support,  could  give  his  interior  unusual  breadth  and  its 
pillars  a  wide  spacing.  And  this  abundance  of  space 
and  light,  expressing  a  taste  that  Late-Gothic  archi- 
tecture everywhere  reveals,  could  here  be  enhanced 
by  a  more  open  fenestration  of  the  clerestory  than  a 
stone  vault  would  have  permitted. 

The  distinctive  beauty  of  these  buildings  lies,  how- 
ever, not  so  much  in  their  construction  as  in  their 
correspondence  in  spirit  with  their  environment  and 
in  their  pictorially  effective  composition.  Delightful 
from  a  painter's  point  of  view  is  above  all  the  grouping 
of  the  different  parts  of  the  structure.  Commonly  the 
large  churches  lack  a  dominating  and  unifying  feature, 
for  in  no  branch  of  effort  was  balanced  composition  the 
strong  side  of  the  Dutch  artist.  Not  only  are  the  aisles 
and  the  nave  separately  roofed  but  usually  each  bay  of 
the  aisle  has  its  own  roof,  and  the  diversified  picture 
created  by  these  peaked  and  saddle  roofs  is  enhanced 
by  the  coverings  of  the  apsidal  chapels  or  of  smaller 
accessory  buildings  along  the  sides  of  the  church.  The 
five-aisled  churches  in  particular  seem  to  fall  into 
varied  masses  of  distinct  buildings  crowded  together 
and,  in  form  and  in  material,  so  happily  harmonized 
with  the  surrounding  houses  that  they  have  no  look  of 
isolation.  In  a  Dutch  city  the  church,  in  any  near 
view,  stands  out  much  less  prominently  from  the  street 

[25] 


THE    ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

picture  than  it  does  in  Belgium.  And  it  is  precisely  in 
this  regard  paid  to  the  environment  in  the  designing  of 
a  church  that  the  art  of  the  Dutch  architect  shows  to 
the  best  advantage. 

Even  the  uninstructed  traveller  in  Holland  imme- 
diately perceives  the  skill  displayed  in  combining  the 
church  with  the  silhouette  of  the  city  square,  or  in 
using  it  to  close  a  street  perspective,  or  in  so  building 
up  church  and  street  along  the  edge  of  a  canal  that, 
with  the  surrounding  trees,  they  mirror  themselves  in 
the  water.  Nor  can  he  fail  to  note  the  delicate  feeling 
shown  in  harmonizing  the  form  and  the  colour  of  the 
material  with  the  adjacent  buildings  and,  indeed,  with 
nature  as  a  whole,  in  considering  in  the  choice  of  the 
small  bricks  the  play  of  light  on  the  water  and  the 
shimmer  of  sunshine  on  the  leaves  of  the  elms,  and  in 
leading  up  through  the  lighter  tones  of  the  lithic  adorn- 
ments to  the  white  doors  and  windows  of  the  houses. 
These  charming  street  compositions  seem  to  have  been 
arranged  by  the  architect  especially  to  serve  as  models 
for  the  painter.  So  it  was  only  natural  that  a  distinct 
class  of  landscape  painters  should  devote  themselves  to 
the  rendering  of  such  views,  and  that  others  should  dis- 
cover the  beauty  of  the  church  interiors,  equally  pic- 
torial in  their  charm  of  light  and  colour. 

The  chief  sources  of  our  pleasure  in  one  of  these  inte- 
riors are  the  great  clear  wall  spaces,  where  every  play 
of  light  is  apparent,  and  the  fine  simple  harmonies  of 
colour  —  the  white  of  the  walls,  the  beautiful  brown  of 
the  wooden  stalls  and  ceilings  composing  with  the 
golden  yellow  of  the  brass  chandeliers  and  choir  screens, 
a  few  reddish  spots  where  the  tile  pavement  is  visible,  and 

[26] 


p.    SAENREDAM,    CHURCH    OF    ST.    BAVON,    HAARLEM 
COLLECTION   OF   MR.    JOHN    G.   JOHNSON,    PHrLADELPHL\ 


CHOIR,    CHURCH    OF   ST.    BAVON,    HA.UILEM 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE   IN    THE   MIDDLE   AGES 

perhaps  also  the  warm  dark  green  of  the  great  curtain 
which  in  former  days  shut  off  the  nave  from  the  choir. 
These  tones  offered  material  enough  for  a  rich  variety 
of  compositions  by  such  masters  in  the  painting  of 
church  interiors  as,  to  name  but  a  few,  Saenredam,  de 
Witte,  van  Vliet,  and  Houckgeest. 

Originally,  it  should  be  said,  the  interior  decoration  of 
these  churches  was  not  quite  as  simple  as  it  has  appeared 
since  the  seventeenth  century.  Under  the  whitewash, 
which  from  the  Gothic  time  onward  did,  indeed, 
cover  the  greater  part  of  the  walls,  remains  of  mural 
paintings  have  here  and  there  been  brought  to  light, 
proving  a  desire  for  a  varied  spot  of  colour  or  a  grace- 
full  decorative  pattern  in  certain  conspicuous  places. 
The  pillars  of  the  choir  were  usually  painted  with  brocade 
or  carpet  patterns  that  served  instead  of  the  actual 
stuffs  displayed  on  feast-days  only.  Here  and  there, 
especially  in  the  choir,  devotional  pictures  which  in- 
cluded portraits  of  their  donors  were  hung  about  on 
the  walls  in  a  naive  irregular  way.  The  capitals  of  the 
pillars  and  the  keystones  of  the  vaults  were  gener- 
ally ornamented  with  colour,  and  in  some  churches, 
as  in  the  one  at  Gouda  and  the  Old  Church  at  Amster- 
dam, a  colouristic  treatment  of  the  windows  in  the 
grand  style  was  begun.  But  this  was  not  carried  far, 
for,  in  the  retarded  development  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture in  Holland,  interior  decorations  were  completed 
only  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  or  during  the 
sixteenth,  when  ecclesiastical  glass-painting  was  in  its 
decline. 

Most  often,  however,  this  sporadic  decoration  of  an 
interior  was  concentrated  on  the  ceilings.     The  wooden 

[27] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

vaults  —  the  art  of  building  which  was  evidently 
nurtured  in  the  Netherlands  by  the  art  of  the  ship- 
builder —  are  often  bound  and  woven  together  by 
geometrical  patterns  so  skilful  that  in  themselves  they 
produce  a  highly  decorative  effect;  and  this  was  en- 
hanced by  carrying  over  them  a  graceful  design  of 
spiky  leafage  which  grows  from  the  capitals  of  the 
pillars  up  to  the  crown  of  the  vaults.  At  times,  again, 
the  whole  ceiling  is  decorated  with  Biblical  pictures 
broadly  handled  and  painted  in  tempera  directly  on  the 
boards;  or  the  semicircular  vaulting  of  the  choir,  which 
takes  the  eye  as  one  enters  the  church,  bears  a  picture 
of  the  Last  Judgment.  The  effect  of  these  ceilings 
with  their  strong  tones  in  lively  contrast  to  the  colour- 
less walls  is  best  appreciated  in  the  church  at  Naarden, 
not  far  from  Amsterdam,  which  was  painted  in  the  first 
third  of  the  sixteenth  century  by  an  artist  who,  poor 
though  he  was  in  invention,  was  rich  in  decorative 
ability. 

A  similar  taste  in  decoration  marks  the  exterior  of  the 
churches  and  especially  their  spires  and  flcches  which, 
again,  should  be  judged  from  the  painter's  rather  than 
the  architect's  point  of  view.  As  the  solid  towers 
begun  in  the  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century  proved 
unstable  or  for  pecuniary  reasons  were  left  unfinished, 
their  torsoes  were  topped  in  the  fifteenth  century  or 
later  by  graceful  openwork  terminations  upon  which 
the  wind  had  no  purchase;  or,  if  a  tower  had  not  even 
been  begun,  the  crossing  was  taken  as  the  dominant 
point  and  adorned  by  a  taW  fleche. 

The  spire  soon  became  a  typical  feature  of  Dutch 
churches ;  and  as  the  Late-Gothic  style,  which  remained 

[28] 


CHURCH    ARCHITECTURE   IN    THE    MIDDLE   AGES 

in  use  until  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  di- 
rectly succeeded  by  various  versions  of  the  Baroque 
without  the  intervention  of  a  purer  Renaissance  style, 
forms  like  the  bulbous  spire,  already  employed  in 
Late-Gothic,  had  a  long  life  in  which  to  develop  toward 
perfection.  An  incomparable  taste  determined  the 
proportions  of  the  different  stories  of  the  tower  as  well 
as  its  outHne  and  the  individual  motives  of  its  orna- 
mentation. Thus,  as  is  also  the  case  with  the  products 
of  the  industrial  arts  of  Holland,  the  adornment  is  not 
spread  over  the  whole  work  but  is  economically  con- 
centrated in  a  single  place,  there  to  be  all  the  more 
carefully  applied  in  an  ingenious  elaborate  design. 
This  embellishment  of  the  spire  or  fleche  above  the 
massive  unadorned  substructure  may  be  compared  to 
the  delightful  ornaments  with  which  the  simply  attired, 
wide-petticoated  Dutch  peasant  enlivens  her  headgear 
at  certain  points. 

With  these  general  characteristics  there  must  be 
noted  certain  local  diversities  in  the  Gothic  church 
architecture  of  the  Dutch.  But  first  it  may  be  said, 
as  has  already  been  implied,  that  genuine  Late-Gothic 
work,  in  the  sense  of  a  luxuriance  of  design  running  into 
the  fantastic,  nowhere  exists  in  Holland.  Until  about 
the  year  1500,  moreover,  the  Hollanders  built  in  the 
simple  Gothic  style  of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth 
centuries,  so  that  if  documentary  evidence  were  lacking 
we  should  fix  too  early  a  date  for  their  buildings,  espe- 
cially those  in  the  smaller  towns,  and  above  all  in  Zee- 
land. 

In  the  larger  Dutch  cities  the  three-aisled  basilica 
predominates,  built  of  brick  with  wooden  ceilings  and 

[29] 


THE   ART    OF    THE  LOW    COUNTRIES 

round  pillars;  such,  among  others,  are  the  Old  Church 
and  the  New  Church  at  Amsterdam,  St.  Bavon  at 
Haarlem,  the  Great  Church  at  Rotterdam,  and  the 
Church  of  St.  Lawrence  at  Alkmaar.  Brabant  and  the 
adjacent  parts  of  Zeeland  hold,  in  architecture  as  in 
painting,  a  middle  place  between  Holland  and  Belgium. 
The  chief  churches  of  Breda,  Bois  le  Due,  Goes,  Veere, 
and  Bergen  op  Zoom  approach  the  Belgio-French  cathe- 
dral type,  having  sometimes  five  aisles,  apsidal  chapels, 
and  a  richer  development  of  triforium,  window  traceries, 
and  flying  buttresses.  The  smaller  churches  of  Zeeland 
retained  until  an  advanced  date  the  older  Early-Gothic 
type,  and  have  a  defiant  gloomy  air.  As  a  rule  they 
have  no  side-aisles,  the  choir  ends  with  a  flat  wall,  and 
there  is  no  ornamentation.  Such  a  church,  uplifting  a 
tower  of  pronouncedly  sloping  shape,  seems  the  defender 
of  the  village  that  clusters  around  it  and  a  seamark 
for  the  fisherman. 

The  churches  of  the  eastern  provinces  resemble 
each  other  less,  leaning  now  toward  the  Dutch  and  now 
toward  the  Rhenish- Westphalian  manner  of  building. 
While  the  round-pillared  type  rules  in  the  north,  the 
basilican  type  with  rectangular  piers  is  most  common  in 
Guelderland  and,  indeed,  in  Nymegen,  Arnhem,  De- 
venter,  and  Zutphen.  In  the  Hanse  towns  of  Zwolle 
and  Kampen  the  Gothic  churches,  although  among  the 
oldest  of  the  thirteenth  century,  were  widened  in  the 
fifteenth  and  retain  from  the  Early-Gothic  period  only 
the  central  alley  of  the  nave. 


[30] 


Ill 

THE  HAARLEM  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTING  IN 
THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 

IT  was  not  fortuitous  that  the  greatest  painters  of 
seventeenth-century  Holland  —  Frans  Hals  and 
Rembrandt  —  came,  the  one  from  Haarlem,  the 
other  from  Leyden,  for  in  a  very  literal  sense  these  two 
cities  were  the  birthplaces  of  Dutch  painting.  Although 
in  other  Dutch  cities  individual  painters  were  at  work 
during  the  Late-Gothic  period,  shortly  before  and  after 
the  year  1500,  only  in  these  two  did  coherent  schools  of 
painting  exist  at  so  early  a  time.  As  Frans  Hals  was 
Rembrandt's  senior  by  a  generation,  so  also  the  early 
school  of  Haarlem  had  antedated  that  of  Ley  den;  as 
at  Haarlem  the  flowering  of  seventeenth-century  art 
began,  so  also  had  it  been  with  the  flowering  of  Primi- 
tive art. 

Yet  we  must  not  imagine  too  regular  an  historical 
sequence,  fancying  that  the  art  of  the  great  period  of 
Hals  and  Rembrandt  grew  directly  from  that  of  the 
earliest  masters.  More  truly,  the  impetus  felt  by 
Primitive  painting  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  and  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  spent  itself  with  the 

[31] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

passage  of  two  productive  generations.  A  decline  set 
in,  as  must  happen  with  every  people  in  the  course  of  its 
general  development,  after  a  rapid  unfolding  of  energy, 
and  in  this  case  it  was  made  manifest  by  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  public  in  other  concerns,  chiefly  social  and 
political.  The  conflict  with  Spain  about  religion  and 
trade,  which  soon  led  to  open  war,  concentrated  the 
mind  of  the  nation  upon  questions  of  subsistence  and 
weaned  it  from  art.  Therefore  art  was  forced  to  strug- 
gle for  life  and,  because  of  its  weakness,  came  un- 
der foreign  and  particularly  under  Italian  influences. 
Only  a  few  painters  of  genius  like  Pieter  Breughel  the 
Elder  and  Antonio  Moro,  who  wandered  to  Flanders 
or  to  still  more  distant  places,  kept  the  national  flag 
flying,  and  even  they  could  not  rescue  art  from  the 
general  decline.  Not  until  the  beginning  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  when  the  war  of  liberation  in  the  Neth- 
erlands had  been  virtually  fought  to  an  end,  did  the 
shallow  waters  of  provincial  effort  gather  themselves 
into  the  broad  stream  that  upbore  a  Frans  Hals  and  a 
Rembrandt.  Then  it  was  in  the  cities  of  Hals  and 
Rembrandt,  in  Haarlem  and  Leyden,  that  the  new  life 
first  awakened,  for  here,  thanks  to  a  great  past,  art 
had  remained  more  vigorous  than  elsewhere  during  the 
days  of  darkness. 

The  flowering  of  Dutch  painting  in  its  first  phase 
covered  approximately  the  years  from  1470  to  1530, 
but,  as  we  shall  see,  the  beginnings  of  an  independent 
art  may  in  all  probability  be  found  several  decades 
farther  back.  It  is  more  diflScult  to  set  a  term  for  the 
beginning  than  for  the  end  of  this  period.  Until 
lately,  indeed,  we  hardly  dared  to  speak  of  fifteenth-cen- 

[32] 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

tury  Dutch  painting,  so  impossible  did  it  seem  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  contemporary  art  of  Flanders. 
While  in  Flanders  the  beginnings  of  an  independent  art 
of  easel  painting  coincided  with  the  advent  of  the  van 
Eyck  brothers,  Dutch  painting  freed  itself  from  this 
sister  development  only  by  degrees,  and  at  the  outset 
in  a  scarcely  perceptible  fashion.  Basing  itself  upon 
the  great  achievements  of  the  Flemings  —  of  the  van 
Eycks,  Rogier  van  der  Weyden,  and  Robert  Campin  — 
it  took  over  from  them,  at  first  almost  literally,  the 
grand  style  that  united  in  so  incomparable  a  way  the 
delicate  technique  of  miniature  painting  with  the  realis- 
tic spirit  of  Burgundian  Gothic  sculpture.  Dirk  Bouts, 
who  was  the  first  Early-Dutch  painter  of  importance, 
might  almost  as  justly  be  numbered  with  the  Flemings, 
and  his  follower  Ouwater  still  worked  so  entirely  in  the 
manner  of  the  van  Eycks  that  we  may  well  wonder 
whether,  had  the  origin  of  these  two  painters  not  been 
known,  the  critical  study  of  their  works  would  have 
discovered  the  Dutch  characteristics  which,  neverthe- 
less, are  undoubtedly  present  in  their  art. 

This  resemblance  between  the  early  painters  of  Hol- 
land and  of  Flanders  is  easily  understood  when  we  re- 
member that  politically  the  northern  and  southern 
Low  Countries  were  regarded  as  a  unit.  During  the 
greater  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  down  to  the  death 
of  Charles  the  Bold  in  1477,  both  regions  belonged  to 
the  Duchy  of  Burgundy,  whose  princes  resided  by  pref- 
erence at  Bruges,  Ghent,  and  Brussels,  where  the  van 
Eycks  and  van  der  Weyden  were  at  home.  Although 
I  Holland  was  an  outlying  possession,  and  although  its 
-  counts  as  well  as  its  cities  were  striving  for  indepen- 

[33j 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

dence,  in  all  departments  of  culture  it  was  affiliated 
with  Flanders,  and  through  Flanders  with  Burgundy. 
A  change  of  government,  bringing  with  it  greater  free- 
dom for  the  Netherlands,  took  place  in  1477  after  the 
fall  of  the  Duchy  of  Burgundy.  United  again,  the 
southern  and  northern  Low  Countries  passed  to  the 
Hapsburgs,  the  heirs  of  Mary  of  Burgundy,  and  were 
joined  to  the  German  Empire.  Then  followed  the 
flowering  of  Early-Dutch  art,  during  the  reigns  of 
Maximilian  I  and  Charles  V.  It  is  true  that  the  Haps- 
burgs troubled  themselves  little  about  the  Netherlands, 
^  but  the  connection  with  the  empire  brought  these  provin- 
ces into  more  vital  relations  with  German  culture.  In 
respect  to  the  arts,  more  manifold  ties  united  them  to 
the  Upper  Rhine,  to  Nuremberg,  to  Suabia,  and  above 
all  to  Cologne  which  for  a  long  time  had  been  bound  to 
the  Low  Countries  by  the  ties  of  trade.  We  realize 
how  closely  the  painters  of  the  Low  Countries  and 
those  of  the  Lower  Rhine  lands  were  related  when  we 
find  how  hard  it  is  in  many  cases  to  decide  whether 
pictures  painted  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  year  1500 
belong  to  the  one  group  of  artists  or  to  the  other. 

Meanwhile  the  connection  between  the  arts  of  Hol- 
land and  of  Flanders  persisted  as  a  factor  in  the  joint 
development  of  the  two  regions;  indeed,  it  again  became 
so  close  when  the  school  of  Antwerp  was  in  its  prime, 
from  about  1510  to  1530,  that  it  is  difficult  now  to  dis- 
tinguish the  works  then  produced  in  Holland  from  those 
produced  in  Flanders.  At  this  time  the  source  of  in- 
fluence was  the  art  of  the  rich  commercial  and  cosmo- 
politan city  on  the  Scheldt,  which  then  attracted  so 
many  artists  from  other  places.     But  even  then  the 

[34] 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

Dutch  adapted  in  independent  ways  the  impressions 
they  received,  and  during  the  last  third  of  the  fifteenth 
century  the  art  of  Holland  had  had  a  clearly  apparent 
character  of  its  own,  and  had  even  given  of  its  strength 
to  the  art  of  Flanders.  The  extraordinary  achieve- 
ment of  the  cities  of  the  southern  Low  Countries, 
especially  of  Bruges,  Ghent,  and  Brussels,  in  producing 
during  the  early  and  middle  years  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury a  long  line  of  painters  of  genius,  had  been  followed 
by  a  relaxation  of  energy  that  profited  the  north.  Here 
the  intellectual  conditions  had  long  been  prepared  for 
the  development  of  an  indigenous  form  of  artistic  ex- 
pression. The  cities  that  had  grown  up  during  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  steadily  enlarging 
their  liberties,  contained  a  population  which  from  the 
very  first  had  been  marked  by  strength  of  character  and 
self-assurance.  Never  until  the  last  moment  before  the 
downfall  of  a  new  over-lordship  could  the  Netherlands 
be  prevailed  upon  to  accept  it,  and  always  all  the  ele- 
ments of  their  population  —  the  clerical  element  con- 
centrated in  the  bishopric  of  Utrecht,  the  aristocratic 
led  by  the  Counts  of  Holland,  and  the  urban  —  were 
striving  toward  independence.  These  three  elements, 
representing  the  strength  of  the  nation,  were  also  the 
supporters  of  artistic  culture.  The  cities,  where  vital 
energy  was  strongest,  produced  the  artist;  and  the  chief 
givers  of  commissions  were,  with  the  bourgeoisie,  the 
church,  and  the  aristocracy  which  supplied  some  of  the 
incumbents  of  church  offices. 

This  first  flowering  of  the  art  of  the  Netherlands, 
this  Early-Dutch  art,  may  be  divided  into  two  periods, 

[35] 


THE   ART    OF   THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

one  covering  the  last  third  of  the  fifteenth  century  and 
the  other  the  first  third  of  the  sixteenth. 

In  the  first  of  these  two  periods  the  school  of  Haarlem 
(which  alone  concerns  us  here)  stands  preeminent  with 
Dirk  Bouts,  Aelbert  van  Ouwater,  and  Geertgen  tot 
Sint  Jans  (Geertgen  van  Haarlem)  as  its  leaders.  Two 
other  painters  of  eminence  were  elsewhere  at  work  at 
the  same  time  —  the  so-called  Master  of  the  Virgo 
inter  Virgines,  who  lived  perhaps  at  Gouda  or  at  Delft, 
and  Hieronymus  Bosch,  the  great  fantastical  painter  of 
Bois  le  Due.  Of  these  five  artists  Bosch  alone  was  still 
active  in  the  second  decade  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
In  fact,  he  holds  a  middle  place  between  the  two  periods 
of  Early-Dutch  painting. 

In  the  second  period  the  school  of  Leyden,  with 
two  great  masters,  Cornelis  Engelbrechtsz  and  Lucas 
van  Leyden,  was  of  chief  importance.  But  Haarlem 
still  produced  a  few  excellent  painters,  notably  Jan 
Mostaert  and  Jan  Joest,  and  it  was  from  this  place  that 
the  art  of  painting,  now  winning  for  itself  a  broader 
footing  in  Holland,  spread  to  Amsterdam  and  Utrecht. 
Jacob  Cornelisz  is  the  most  important  painter  of  Am- 
sterdam, Jan  Scoorel  of  Utrecht. 

I 

DIRK    BOUTS 

Born  at  Haarlem  about  the  year  1410,  Dirk  Bouts 
belonged  to  the  generation  that  followed  the  van  Eycks 
and  Robert  Campin  (the  Master  of  Flemalle)  and  was 
some  ten  years  younger  than  Rogier  van  der  Weyden 
and  Jacques  Daret.  Phlegmatic  in  temperament,  he 
can  hardly  have  developed  early.     Probably  he  went 

[36] 


THE   HAARLEM   SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

to  Flanders  for  his  training,  for  there  is  no  reason  to 
beHeve  that  before  his  advent  anything  of  an  indepen- 
dent kind  was  achieved  in  Holland  in  the  novel  art  of 
easel  painting  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  beginning 
of  his  career  coincides  precisely  with  the  splendid  flower- 
ing of  the  school  of  Tournai  under  Robert  Campin 
and  van  der  Weyden.  The  gaunt  and  bony  aspect  and 
angular  movements  of  his  figures,  and  his  efforts  to 
render  characteristic  types  and  strongly  marked  ex- 
pressions, for  the  sake  of  which  he  often  sacrificed 
beauty,  may  well  indicate  that  he  attached  himself 
especially  to  van  der  Weyden.  Settling  in  Haarlem 
at  the  end  of  his  student  years,  at  some  time  after  1440, 
he  gave  the  first  impulse  to  the  development  of  art  in 
this  city.  By  1448,  however,  we  find  him  once  more  in 
Flanders,  at  Louvain,  where  he  seems  to  have  settled 
permanently,  obtaining  in  the  course  of  time  impor- 
tant commissions  from  the  municipality.  Here  we  can 
follow  him  in  his  work  from  the  year  1462  until  his 
death  in  1475.  But  it  may  confidently  be  assumed  that 
in  spite  of  his  removal  to  Flanders  he  kept  up  relations 
with  his  birthplace,  for  he  was  still  held  in  lively  re- 
membrance at  Haarlem  in  the  time  of  van  Mander*  — 
it  was  still  known  in  which  house  he  had  lived;  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  his  style  was  carried  on  in  a  number  of 
pictures  that  were  painted  at  Haarlem  in  the  'seventies 
or  at  earliest  in  the  'sixties  of  the  fifteenth  century. 

No  product  of  the  years  that  Bouts  spent  in  Haarlem 
prior  to  1448  is  known  to  us,  and  probably  little  of  im- 
portance survives  from  this  early  period,  for  all  of  his 
existing  pictures  that  can  be  dated  belong  between  the 

*Karel  van  Mander,  Het  Schilderboek.     Amsterdam,  1604. 

[37] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

'fifties  and  the  'seventies  and  with  these  the  others  must 
be  classed.  The  total  number,  about  twenty-five,  is 
considerable  as  compared  with  the  legacies  of  other 
Primitive  masters;  nor  need  this  fact  surprise  us,  for 
the  pictures  themselves  bear  instant  witness  to  an 
industrious,  an  indefatigable,  painter.  Moreover,  long 
years  of  activity  were  vouchsafed  him. 

Dirk  Bouts  has  rightly  been  ranked  with  the  greatest 
of  the  Dutch  Primitives.  At  first  sight,  indeed,  there 
is  nothing  very  attractive  in  his  gallery  of  figures. 
Solitary,  aloof  from  the  world,  his  personages  stand 
around  in  his  pictures,  the  hard  gauntness  of  their 
forms  all  the  more  noticeable  because  they  are  placed 
so  far  apart  from  one  another.  Most  of  them  have  a 
joyless  outlook  upon  life  and  a  bourgeois,  dry,  and 
wooden  bearing.  One  might  suppose  a  painter  of  a 
somewhat  philistine,  pedantic  nature,  a  genuine  Hol- 
lander in  his  phlegmatic  temperament  and  his  lack  of 
all  feeling  for  grace  and  charm.  And  yet  his  work 
possesses  in  a  high  degree  the  qualities  that  attract  us 
so  strongly  to  the  Primitive  masters.  Under  the  shy 
reserved  demeanour  of  his  figures  there  hides  an  inti- 
mate and  genuine  kind  of  sentiment  for  which  we  vainly 
seek  in  the  painters  of  later  centuries.  Sincerity  and 
veracity  of  expression  redeem  that  harshness  in  the 
forms  which  was  due,  not  to  the  artist  alone,  but 
also  to  the  general  taste  of  his  time.  The  unbeautiful 
Madonna  with  the  high  osseous  forehead,  the  narrow 
eyes,  the  pursed-up  mouth,  is  so  imbued  with  all  the 
qualities  of  motherhood  that  we  cannot  help  admiring 
her.  The  Child  expresses  its  infantile  thoughts  so  sim- 
ply, so  convincingly,  that  we  watch  its  behaviour  with 

[38] 


DIRK    BOUTS,    MADONNA    AND    CHILD 

NATIONAL    GALLERY,    LONDON 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF    PAINTING 

greater  interest  than  we  should  if  its  movements  were 
more  graceful.  It  is,  however,  in  his  masculine  char- 
acters, with  their  measured  expressive  gestures  and  their 
quiet  thoughts  absorbed  in  a  world  of  their  own,  that 
Bouts  succeeds  most  admirably. 

His  keen  eye  for  individual  facts  is  nowhere  more 
plainly  shown  than  in  that  rendering  of  the  accessories 
for  which  Primitive  painters  have  always  been  famous. 
The  furs  and  brocades  of  his  costumes  are  painted  with 
the  same  love  and  the  same  sure  sense  of  the  material 
as  the  utensils  on  the  table  or  the  simple  ornaments  on 
the  wall,  as  the  fireplace,  the  buffet,  the  wash-basin  in 
the  niche.  Wherever  a  window  or  a  door  permits  a 
glimpse  of  the  outer  world  the  painter  is  sure  to  give 
an  exact  report  upon  the  interesting  details  of  street  or 
garden  or  of  the  landscape  back  to  a  faraway  distance. 
So  it  sometimes  happens  that  a  subordinate  scene  is  the 
most  charming  part  of  the  picture,  and  that  the  com- 
position lacks  organic  unity.  And  as  it  is  with  the 
different  parts  of  the  picture  so  it  is  with  the  figures: 
they  are  so  individually  conceived  that  they  cannot  j 
easily  come  into  relationship  with  their  neighbours.  | 
This  narrative  way  of  presenting  the  subject  —  ranging  | 
the  figures  loosely  one  beside  another  and  laying  stress  j 
above  all  upon  the  pregnant  characterization  of  the 
individual  and  the  environment  —  is,  again,  part  and 
parcel  of  the  art  of  the  period.  It  will  be  remembered, 
perhaps,  how  similar  was  the  procedure  of  contem- 
porary painters  in  Germany  and  Italy  —  of  Martin 
Schongauer,  for  example,  and  the  Master  of  the  Life 
of  the  Virgin,  or  of  Fra  Filippo  Lippi  and  Ghirlandajo. 
It  meant,  in  comparison  with  the  art  of  the  Master 

[39] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

of  Flemalle  and  Rogier  van  der  Weyden,  an  advance  in 
the  observation  of  details  that  was  certainly  not  favour- 
able to  unity  of  composition,  for  these  earlier  masters 
had  known  how  to  hold  their  groups  together  in  the 
interest  of  the  main  theme,  and  had  always  thought 
more  of  the  whole  than  of  its  parts. 

Among  the  chief  merits  of  Dirk  Bouts  are  his  rare 
feeling  for  colour,  in  which  he  surpasses  most  of  the 
Flemish  Primitives,  and  his  technical  skill.  He  is  not 
a  great  colourist  in  the  sense  that  by  subordinating  all 
other  tones  to  a  few  he  achieves  an  integral  harmony. 
This  ideal,  indeed,  lay  far  ahead  of  the  painters  of  his 
day.  But  he  sets  his  vivid  varied  colours  side  by  side 
in  such  a  way  that  each  accords  with  the  next  and  raises 
it  to  the  highest  possible  degree  of  brilliancy.  In  this 
sure  accordance  of  the  different  hues  and  in  their  warm 
and  glowing  depth  only  a  few  of  his  contemporaries 
equal  him.  In  fact,  for  parallel  effects  we  must  look 
back  to  the  van  Eycks.  The  progress  of  time  is  shown, 
however,  by  Bouts'  acquaintance  with  mixed  tones, 
such  as  a  gray-lilac  and  a  pink,  which  do  not  appear 
in  the  work  of  the  van  Eycks  or  of  van  der  Weyden. 

The  strong  yet  rich  variety  of  colour,  the  inner  glow 
and  warmth,  that  are  characteristic  of  Bouts'  pictures, 
as  of  most  of  those  of  Early-Dutch  origin,  distinguish 
them  from  the  Flemish  products  of  his  time  which  are 
lighter  and  paler  in  key.  And  the  purity  of  his  colours, 
attained  by  means  of  a  technique  hardly  inferior  in  its 
scrupulous  carefulness  to  that  of  the  van  Eycks,  gives 
his  pictures  a  freshness  that  has  outlasted  the  centuries. 

The  most  famous  of  his  works  are  the  two,  in  the 
Museum  at  Brussels,  which  interpret  a  legend  from  the 

[40] 


DIRK    BOUTS,    THE    GATHERING    OF   THE    MANNA 

PINAKOTHEK,    MUNICH 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

life  of  the  Emperor  Otto  III  —  a  theme  that  was 
chosen  by  the  municipal  councillors  of  Lou  vain,  who 
gave  the  commission,  as  an  example  of  the  results  of 
judicial  injustice.  But  these  pictures,  painted  at  Lou- 
vain  during  the  last  years  of  the  artist's  life,  between 
1468  and  1475,  do  not  show  him  at  his  best,  for  it  was 
beyond  his  power  to  render  dramatic  action  with  figures 
the  size  of  life.  Under  his  hand  the  drama  of  a  dreadful 
judgment  scene  becomes  a  long-winded  tale  in  which  only 
certain  admirable  portrait  heads  stand  out  as  of  much 
significance.  Nor,  indeed,  did  the  Dutch  painters  of 
a  later  and  greater  time  often  achieve  anything  of  a 
dramatic  kind  on  a  large  scale,  although  even  the 
Primitive  Flemings,  like  van  der  Weyden  and  the 
Master  of  Flemalle,  true  precursors  of  Quentin  Metsys 
and  the  remoter  Rubens,  filled  great  panels  with  pas- 
sionately animated  compositions. 

Bouts  appears  to  much  better  advantage  in  the 
triptych  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Hippolytus  in  the 
Church  of  St.  Sauveur  at  Bruges  —  one  wing  of  which 
containing  the  figures  of  the  donors  was  finished,  after 
his  death,  in  a  masterly  way  by  Hugo  van  der  Goes 
• —  and  in  the  somewhat  earlier  altar-piece,  the  Mar- 
tyrdom of  St.  Erasmus  in  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  at 
Louvain.  These  pictures  are  full  of  splendid  passages 
in  the  colours  of  the  costumes  and  in  the  landscape; 
but  again  the  stolidity  of  the  artist  interferes  with  a 
proper  solution  of  diflScult  dramatic  problems.  Most 
entirely  suited  to  his  temperament,  perhaps,  are  the 
beautiful  triptych  of  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  at 
Munich  and  certain  scenes  in  the  Louvain  altar-piece 
representing  the  Last  Supper,  especially  in  its  wings 

[41] 


THE   ART   OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

which  are  now  in  the  pubHc  galleries  at  Berlin  and  Mu- 
nich. A  picture  like  the  Gathering  of  the  Manna  bears 
witness  to  the  character  of  the  artist  as  well  as  to  his 
method  of  composition  and  his  conception  of  land- 
scape. With  what  slow  patience  do  the  three  fore- 
ground figures  collect  the  manna!  How  deliberately 
they  have  stooped  so  that  their  garments  shall  not 
drag  ungracefully  on  the  ground !  And  how  shyly  does 
the  little  child  that  the  meek  meditative  mother  leads 
by  the  hand  beg  for  some  bread  from  the  basket !  The 
landscape  with  its  jagged  rocks  is  still  conventionally 
composed,  but,  enlivened  by  little  figures  of  diminish- 
ing sizes,  it  stretches  away  in  various  vistas  to  a  far 
blue  distance.  As  a  whole,  however,  it  still  surrounds 
the  human  beings  as  might  an  interior  space,  closely 
and  comfortably.  This  conception  which,  down  to  the 
time  of  Rembrandt,  we  encounter  again  and  again  in 
Dutch  pictures,  interprets  a  peculiarity  in  the  land- 
scape of  Holland  that  was  well  observed  by  the  Primi- 
tive painters  —  the  constantly  recurring  contrast  be- 
tween far  distances  and  an  enclosed  area  near  at  hand. 
In  the  verdant  avenues  with  drooping  branches,  in  the 
low  forests,  among  the  dunes,  and  on  the  tree-planted 
squares  of  the  compact  villages,  one  walks  as  in  an 
interior  that  affords  through  little  windows  glimpses  of 
far-spreading  plains. 

In  his  biography  of  Aelbert  van  Ouwater,  van 
Mander  remarks  that  the  earliest  painters  spoke  of 
Haarlem  as  the  place  where  landscape  painting  de- 
veloped. And  Dirk  Bouts  has  the  first  claim  to  be 
considered  the  founder  of  this  great  branch  of  Dutch 
art  which  in  the  seventeenth  century  counted  at  Haar- 

[42] 


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DIRK   BOUTS,    ST.    CHRISTOPHER 

PINAKOTHEK,    MUNICH 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

lem  some  of  its  chief  representatives,  such  as  Jan  van 
Goyen  and  Jacob  and  Solomon  Ruisdael.  Although 
the  composition  of^  his  backgrounds  is  antiquated, 
Bouts  observes  aerial  perspective  and  cloud  formations 
better  than  his  Flemish  forerunners,  and  he  is  the  first 
who  strives  to  indicate  in  a  picture  the  particular  time 
of  day.  In  the  Gathering  of  the  Manna  and  on  the 
wing  belonging  to  it,  which  is  now  at  Berlin  and  rep- 
resents Elijah  in  the  Wilderness,  the  evening  shadows 
in  the  valleys  are  rendered  with  a  delicate  power  of 
observation.  In  the  background  of  a  picture  of  Christ 
Taken  Prisoner,  in  the  Pinakothek  at  Munich,  Bouts 
tries  to  give  the  effect  of  torchlight  and  moonlight. 
And  the  St.  Christopher  which  forms  one  wing  of 
the  Munich  tripytch  of  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  is 
rightly  famous  as  the  first  representation  of  a  sunset  in 
easel  painting.  Certainly  it  was  not  by  accident  that  a 
Hollander  was  the  first  who  observed  so  closely  the  re- 
flections of  the  setting  sun  on  the  water  and  the  land, 
and  who  tried  to  render  with  his  restricted  linear 
scheme  what  was  afterward  so  perfectly  reproduced  by 
the  painters  of  Rembrandt's  time,  above  all  by  Albert 
Cuyp. 

It  seems  natural  that  an  artist  who  took  so  much  in- 
terest in  characteristic  heads  should  have  painted  in- 
dividual portraits,  all  the  more  because  in  this  field  he 
had  predecessors  as  great  as  Jan  van  Eyck,  van  der 
Weyden,  and  the  Master  of  Flemalle.  Two  such  works 
are  known  —  a  portrait  of  a  man  in  the  National 
Gallery  at  London  and  another  in  the  Altman  Collec- 
tion in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  at  New  York. 
Both  of  them,  definite,  simple,  and  rapt  in  expression, 

[43] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

stand  worthily  at  the  very  beginning  of  Dutch  art 
which  in  portraiture  was  to  achieve  perhaps  its  greatest 
triumphs. 

A  general  survey  of  his  work  shows  Dirk  Bouts  as  a 
continuator  of  the  great  Flemish  tradition  no  less  than 
as  one  of  the  founders  of  Dutch  painting.  It  would  be 
a  mistake  to  wish  to  dissever  him  from  the  course  of 
Flemish  developments  and  to  consider  him  as  a  purely 
Dutch  painter,  for  he  produced  his  most  important 
works  amid  Flemish  surroundings  and  under  Flemish 
influence.  On  the  other  hand,  his  Dutch  character- 
istics are  so  pronounced  that  he  cannot  be  judged  solely 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Flemish  art.  The  important 
double  place  that  must  be  given  him  in  the  history  of 
painting  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  in  Flanders  as 
in  Holland  he  founded  a  school  upon  which,  in  the 
one  country  as  in  the  other,  the  art  of  the  following 
period  was  based.  In  Flanders  as  great  a  master  as 
Quentin  Metsys  sprang  from  his  school.  In  Holland 
the  whole  school  of  Haarlem  blossomed  from  his  art. 
This  art  forms  the  first  stage  in  the  progress  of  Dutch 
painting  which,  just  then,  was  freeing  itself  in  spirit 
from  the  art  of  the  neighbour  land.  From  the  moment 
when  the  artists  for  whom  Dirk  Bouts  had  done  such  ex- 
cellent preparatory  work  remained  in  their  native  country 
Dutch  painting  stood  upon  its  own  feet. 

In  Louvain  numerous  works  issued  from  the  school  of 
Bouts,  and  a  group  of  them  may  be  ascribed  to  one  of 
his  sons,  Aelbrecht  Bouts.  But  these  pictures,  intrin- 
sically of  small  importance,  need  not  be  considered  in 
connection  with  Dutch  painting  for,  in  spite  of  an 
affinity  with  Bouts'  compositions,  they  are  markedly 

[44] 


DIRK    BOUTS,    PORTRAIT    OF   A    MAN 

METROPOLITAX    MUSEUM    OF    ART,    NEW    YORK 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

Flemish  in  their  colouring  as  well  as  in  their  types  which 
show  the  influence  of  Hugo  van  der  Goes.  We  may 
therefore  turn  to  Haarlem  where  in  Aelbert  van  Ou- 
water  we  find  the  most  important  of  the  immediate 
followers  of  Dirk  Bouts. 

n 

AELBERT   VAN   OUWATER 

The  criticism  that  is  based  upon  stylistic  grounds 
has  been  more  barren  of  results  in  dealing  with  Ouwater 
than  with  any  other  great  Primitive  painter.  After  a 
successful  first  step  —  when  Dr.  Wilhelm  Bode,  shortly 
before  the  year  1890,  discovered  in  Italy  one  of  the  two 
pictures  by  Ouwater  that  van  Mander  had  described  — 
our  knowledge  of  the  painter  has  not  advanced  by  a 
single  degree,  for  not  one  of  the  works  ascribed  to  him 
during  the  last  thirty  years  can  stand  the  test  of  careful 
criticism.  The  only  surely  authenticated  picture  of 
Ouwater's  is  still  the  one  that  Bode  discovered,  the 
Raising  of  Lazarus,  now  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum 
at  Berlin.  Yet  it  is  very  probable  that  about  as  many 
of  his  works  are  still  in  existence  as  have  been  left  us  by 
other  Primitive  painters  —  at  least  a  dozen. 

The  records  are  also  surprisingly  barren,  mentioning 
Ouwater  only  once,  in  the  year  1467,  when  he  buried  a 
daughter  in  St.  Bavon,  the  principal  church  at  Haarlem 
—  a  fact  which  does  not  help  us  much  in  determining 
the  dates  of  his  career.  We  can  depend,  therefore, 
only  upon  the  single  picture  in  Berlin  which,  according 
to  the  witness  of  its  style,  dates  from  about  the  year 
1460,  and  upon  the  brief  statements  of  van  Mander. 
These  imply  that  Ouwater  was  still  alive  in  1480.     As 

[45] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

his  name  indicates,  he  came  from  Ouwater,  a  village 
near  Gouda;  and  from  his  picture  we  gather  that  he 
studied  with  Dirk  Bouts.  His  activity  must  have 
covered,  approximately,  the  years  from  1450  to  1480. 
As  he  painted  a  high  altar  for  the  Church  of  St.  Bavon, 
and  as  some  of  his  paintings  were  known  in  Italy,  he 
must  have  achieved  considerable  prominence. 

The  most  unfortunate  result  of  the  limitation  of  our 
knowledge  to  a  single  one  of  his  pictures  is  the  impos- 
sibility of  defining  with  precision  the  part  he  played 
in  the  development  of  painting.  So  plainly,  however, 
as  far  as  form  is  concerned,  does  this  picture  speak  the 
language  of  Dirk  Bouts  that,  as  long  as  a  wider  knowl- 
edge of  Ouwater's  art  is  denied  us,  we  must  regard 
Bouts  and  after  him  Geertgen  tot  Sint  Jans  as  the 
masters  who  definitively  determined  the  development 
of  art  at  Haarlem. 

Through  his  one  picture,  however,  we  can  in  some 
degree  make  acquaintance  with  Ouwater  himself.  In 
his  careful,  minute,  and  brilliant  workmanship  he  stands 
almost  as  near  as  Dirk  Bouts  himself  to  the  classic 
tradition  established  by  the  van  Eycks.  Costumes 
and  brocades,  furs  and  silken  turbans,  he  renders  with 
the  same  astonishing  technique,  and,  like  his  master, 
he  achieves  a  beautifully  diversified  effect  of  colour,  as 
of  old  stained-glass  windows.  Only,  the  tones  are 
somewhat  lighter  and  brighter  —  perhaps,  in  our  pic- 
ture, because  of  the  artist's  wish  to  render  the  diffused 
light  streaming  into  the  choir  of  the  church.  The  types 
are  in  accord  with  the  more  cheerful  colour  scheme, 
for  although  they  are  closely  related  to  the  types  of 
Dirk  Bouts  they  reveal  a  dijfferent  temperament.     The 

[46] 


OUWATER,    THE    RAISING    OF   LAZARUS 

KAISER    FRIEDRICH    MUSEUM,    BERLIN 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

figures  have  less  of  the  grave  and  reserved  spirit  and 
nothing  of  the  strained  intensity  of  expression  that 
we  find  in  Bouts;  instead,  they  have  a  mild  and  modest 
or  a  naively  stupid  mien.  Their  bodies,  though  slender, 
are  less  bony  and  are  short  in  their  proportions,  with 
delicately  formed  extremities.  Timid  and  earnest  in 
their  demeanour,  when  they  grow  animated  they  ex- 
press themselves  wuth  childishly  direct  movements. 
How  moderate,  how  gentle,  are  the  astonished  gestures 
of  the  awakening  Lazarus!  How  shyly,  with  low 
voices,  the  figures  back  of  Jesus  comment  upon  the 
event !  Even  the  Pharisees  venture  but  diffidently  to  ex- 
press their  doubts.  Only  Peter  zealously  addresses  his 
nearest  neighbours,  and  a  few  of  the  spectators  beyond 
the  grating,  crowding  eagerly  forward,  seem  to  share  his 
mood.  More  impressive,  however,  are  the  Christ  with 
his  simple  bearing,  his  calm  and  gentle  look,  and  the 
sister  of  Lazarus  at  prayer  in  the  foreground,  true  Bib- 
lical piety  written  on  her  countenance.  We  are  in  Rem- 
brandt's country,  these  two  figures  remind  us,  and  the 
art  of  Primitive  pointers  like  Ouwater  prepared  the  way 
for  his  incomparable  interpretations  of  Bible  stories. 

Van  Mander  praises  our  painter  especially  for  his 
landscapes,  and  in  Italy  also  they  were  known  as  early 
as  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  hardly 
doubtful,  therefore,  that  in  landscape  painting  Ouwater 
carried  farther  the  important  innovations  of  Dirk 
Bouts  —  a  proof  of  the  remarkable  consistency  with 
which  Dutch  painting  developed  along  its  own  path. 

In  the  composition  of  the  Raising  of  Lazarus  we 
find,  again,  a  hint  with  regard  to  the  later  development 
of  Dutch  art.     It  is  the  first  Dutch  picture  of  a  church 

[47] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

interior,  the  forerunner  of  the  numerous  interior  views 
which,  in  the  time  of  Rembrandt,  formed  a  special 
department  of  Dutch  painting.  It  is  true  that  Flemish 
art  had  supplied  Ouwater  with  more  than  one  example 
of  a  similar  arrangement,  but  he  was  the  first  who 
observed  the  individual  character  of  the  interiors  of 
mediaeval  Dutch  churches  —  the  pictorial  effectiveness 
of  their  clear  lighting  and  the  admirable  fitness  of  their 
bare  wall  spaces  as  backgrounds  for  many-coloured 
costumes. 

ni 

VARIOUS   PICTURES    IN    THE   MANNER    OF    DIRK   BOUTS 

There  were  other  painters  besides  Ouwater  who, 
working  at  Haarlem  at  the  same  time,  derived  in  their 
art  from  Dirk  Bouts.  Such  isolated  anonymous  ex- 
amples of  their  work  as  are  known  to  us,  dating  mostly 
from  the  seventh  and  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  decade 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  deserve  attention  for  their  own 
sake  as  well  as  for  the  sake  of  their  significance  in  the 
development  of  the  Haarlem  school. 

One  picture  of  this  sort,  owned  by  Mr.  Stephenson 
Clarke  at  Hayward  Heath  in  England  —  a  Madonna 
and  Child  seated  on  a  grassy  bank  —  has  often  been 
tentatively  ascribed  to  Bouts  himself.  It  is  a  charming 
garden  scene,  typically  Dutch  in  the  rectangular  flower- 
beds and  the  straight  paths  along  which  in  the  back- 
ground two  saintly  women  are  walking.  Beyond  the 
garden,  which  is  enclosed  by  brick  houses  and  walls, 
spreads  a  wide  hilly  landscape  diversified  by  groups  of 
trees,  quite  like  the  landscapes  in  the  pictures  of  Dirk 
Bouts.     In  the  cathedral  of  Leitmeritz,  in  Bohemia, 

[48] 


FOLLOWER    OF    DIRK    BOUTS,    MADONNA    AND    CHILD 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    STEPHENSON    CLARKE,    HAYWARD    HEATH,    ENGLAND 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF    PAINTING 

Hofstede  de  Groot  found  an  identical  composition 
with  a  somewhat  different  background.  Both  these 
pictures  are  full  of  simplicity  and  grace.  Idyllic  in 
suggestion  is  the  portrayal  of  the  delicately  formed 
mother  picking  a  flower  from  the  grass  for  the  child  who 
eagerly  stretches  out  his  arms,  of  the  saints  in  the 
garden  amicably  greeting  each  other,  of  the  flowers  and 
the  turf,  the  peacocks  on  the  wall,  the  swans  in  the 
moat.  No  painter  of  the  Madonna  had  hitherto  gone 
so  far  in  transcribing  from  nature,  in  portraying  genre- 
like details.  Compositions  with  enclosed  gardens  or 
courts  came  to  be  characteristic  of  the  Haarlem  school 
and,  with  differences  in  the  principal  figures,  will  often 
meet  us  again.  Undoubtedly  they  trace  back  to  Dirk 
Bouts,  for  in  an  altar-piece  now  at  Granada  he  had  al- 
ready set  in  a  garden  a  representation  of  the  Holy 
Family. 

Another  such  picture,  of  about  the  same  date  as  Mr. 
Clarke's,  is  a  Raising  of  Lazarus  which  is  said  to  be  in 
Mexico  and  is  known  to  me  only  through  photographs. 
From  the  general  arrangement  and  the  attitudes  of 
Lazarus,  his  sisters,  and  the  Saviour,  it  appears  that 
this  artist  must  have  known  Ouwater's  picture  of  the 
same  name;  but  he  lays  his  scene  in  a  courtyard  of 
similar  design  to  the  one  in  Mr.  Clarke's  Madonna  and 
Child.  On  one  side  stands  the  palace,  the  lowest  story 
borne  by  columns;  on  the  other  side,  connected  with 
the  palace  by  a  low  wall,  is  a  high  corner  or  gateway 
tower.  Beyond  the  wall  we  see  the  castle  moat, 
hills  farther  back,  and  in  the  distance  a  city  full  of 
churches.  The  castle  courtyard,  its  brick  buildings 
enlivened  by  stone  trimmings  and  adorned  with  blank 

[49] 


THE  ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

arcades  and  crenellated  cornices,  the  numerous  low 
walls,  and  the  little  steps  and  stairways,  admirably 
represent  the  castle  architecture  of  the  time,  of  which 
the  Binnenhof  at  the  Hague,  although  much  changed 
by  restorations,  is  the  most  extensive  existing  example. 
The  picture  in  Mexico,  it  may  be  added,  reveals  an 
artist  who  is  sturdier  and  blunter  than  Ouwater  and 
who  gives  his  figures  a  more  plebeian  aspect. 

It  has  been  thought  that  in  another  closely  related 
picture,  the  third  which  portrays  a  castle  courtyard  of 
the  kind  just  described,  the  Binnenhof  itself  may  be 
recognized.  It  is  a  representation  of  the  Tiburtine 
Sibyl  and  the  Emperor  Augustus,  and  is  now  in  the 
Stadel  Institute  at  Frankfort.  A  clearer  idea  may  be 
formed  of  its  painter  than  of  the  painter  of  the  picture 
in  Mexico,  for  we  may  confidently  attribute  to  the  same 
hand  another  large  composition,  a  portrayal  of  the  Life 
of  the  Virgin,  now  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  John  G. 
Johnson  of  Philadelphia. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  Frankfort  picture.  Almost 
in  spite  of  ourselves  it  strikes  us  as  comical.  With  a 
stupid  supercilious  expression  the  Tiburtine  Sibyl 
points  the  emperor,  who  is  splendidly  dressed  but 
coarse  in  type,  to  the  sky,  where  in  the  distance  floats 
the  Madonna  with  the  Child.  The  connection  that 
should  exist  between  this  apparition  and  the  terrestrial 
figures  is  in  some  degree  missed,  for  the  artist,  evidently 
wishing  to  show  neither  the  emperor  nor  the  sibyl  from 
the  back,  has  turned  the  emperor  more  toward  the 
observer  than  toward  the  Madonna ;  and  for  the  same 
reason  the  bystanders,  who  are  as  boorishly  self- 
important  as  the  chief  personages,  also  look  in  the 

[50] 


FOLLOWER    OF    DIRK    BOUTS,    THE    RAISING    OF    LAZARUS 

MEXICO 


THE   HAARLEM   SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

wrong  direction  or  else  maintain  an  amusing  air  of 
condescension  and  indifference,  an  understanding  of 
the  miracle  penetrating  but  slowly  through  their  thick 
skulls.  In  some  of  the  masculine  heads,  however, 
which  are  conceived  in  a  portrait-like  way,  the  heavy 
features  have  an  imposing  character,  and  two  or  three 
of  the  councillors  at  the  left  of  the  picture  recall  figures 
by  van  der  Weyden  or  the  Master  of  Flemalle.  The 
costumes  —  the  heavy  baggy  mantles,  the  high  cloth 
caps,  the  pointed  shoes,  and  the  Burgundian  head- 
dress worn  by  one  of  the  ladies  in  the  background  — 
show  that  we  are  not  far  from  the  golden  age  of  Bur- 
gundian art.  The  strength  and  the  decorative  breadth 
of  this  art,  clearly  revealed  in  Burgundian  tapestries 
of  the  sixth  and  seventh  decades  of  the  century, 
seem  to  have  been  the  ideal  in  the  mind  of  our  painter. 
In  comparison  with  the  work  of  Dirk  Bouts  the  treat- 
ment of  the  lighting  shows  progress  and  at  the  same 
time  a  development  of  Bouts'  problems.  The  courtyard, 
lying  in  a  bright  sunshine  that  casts  sharp  shadows,  and 
the  figures,  standing  out  from  it  in  dark,  almost  flat 
masses,  are  rendered  with  a  simplified  art  surpassing 
that  of  the  elder  painter,  and  the  delight  displayed  in  ac- 
cumulating genre-like  details  in  the  background  belongs 
to  a  later  phase  of  art  than  his.  In  these  subordinate 
scenes  the  artist  appears  as  a  great  lover  of  animals. 
Under  the  palace  stairway  lies  a  chained  bear,  in  the 
adjacent  window  sits  a  monkey,  in  the  foreground 
stands  a  little  greyhound,  farther  back  a  pair  of  pea- 
cocks promenade;  and  there  are  water-wagtails  on  the 
wall  by  the  moat,  storks  on  the  roofs,  herons  in  the 
field.     In  the  delightful,  clearly  illumined  landscape  a 

[51] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

horseman  is  riding  away  while  a  dog  springs  up  to  him, 
a  shepherd  pastures  his  flock,  and  on  a  pathway  are  two 
Kzards  drawn,  in  spite  of  the  distance,  on  so  large  a 
scale  that  at  first  sight  we  might  mistake  them  for 
crocodiles. 

The  naive  love  of  story-telling  with  which  all  such 
things  are  rendered  is  one  of  the  most  charming  quali- 
ties of  this  artist.  And  it  is  shared  by  most  of  the 
Early-Dutch  painters,  who  take  more  pleasure  than  the 
Flemings  in  an  episodical  spinning  out  of  their  themes. 

Full  of  similar  details  is  a  picture,  owned  by  Mr. 
Johnson,  of  scenes  from  the  Life  of  the  Virgin  with  the 
Marriage  of  Joseph  and  Mary  as  the  principal  subject. 
A  comparison  of  the  feminine  types  and  of  the  bearded 
old  men  makes  it  particularly  clear  that  we  have  here 
to  do  with  the  same  brush  that  painted  the  Frankfort 
picture.  Moreover,  we  find  the  same  clear  illumination, 
the  same  distinctness  of  detail  carried  into  the  far  dis- 
tance, and  the  same  predominance  of  green  and  a 
strong  vermilion.  Nor  is  the  little  menagerie  of  tame 
beasts  lacking.  Most  conspicuous  now  is  a  family  of 
rabbits,  one  of  them  sitting  sleepily  on  the  path,  another 
hopping  away,  a  third  just  disappearing  into  his  hole, 
his  hind  feet  still  visible.  Admirably  rendered  also  is 
the  terrier  that  accompanies  Joachim,  boldly  leaping 
down  the  steps  of  the  temple. 

The  artist  has  developed  since  he  painted  the  Sibyl 
and  Augustus.  While  this  picture  can  hardly  be  of  a 
later  date  than  1465,  the  costumes  in  the  Marriage 
speak,  approximately,  of  1480.  The  garments  of  the 
women  have  become  closer  fitting  and  more  elegant, 
the  men  wear  shorter  coats  and  the  flat  berets  or  fur 

[52] 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

caps  with  which  we  are  famihar  in  the  early  works  of 
Diirer.  Broad  shppers  replace  the  long  pointed  shoes, 
giving  the  men,  even  on  the  street,  a  comfortable 
domestic  look.  In  the  stead  of  the  Burgundian  mode 
we  have  the  less  cumbrous  fashions  of  France.*  And 
the  personages  seem  to  have  altered  with  their  clothes. 
They  have  grown  a  little  more  animated  and  no  longer 
contemplate  the  world  so  gloomily  or  unconcernedly. 
That  the  rejected  suitors  of  Mary  should  still  look  on 
with  apparent  indifference,  and  that  the  elegant  youth 
in  the  foreground  should  display  a  stupid  and  affected 
self-consciousness,  is  easily  understood  from  the  spirit 
in  which  the  story  is  told.  Joseph  appears  all  the  more 
cheerful  with  his  naive  countenance,  and  Mary  carries 
herself  with  a  meek  modesty.  But  in  a  more  lively 
fashion  are  described  the  scenes  in  the  background 
which  set  forth  Mary's  previous  history  —  the  expul- 
sion of  Joachim  from  the  temple,  the  meeting  of 
Joachim  and  Anne,  the  birth  of  Mary,  her  presentation 
in  the  temple,  and  finally,  far  in  the  distance,  the 
annunciation  to  the  shepherds.  With  long  steps,  pas- 
sionately gesticulating  in  assertion  of  his  innocence, 
Joachim  departs  from  the  high  priest.  In  serious  dis- 
course he  and  Anne  accompany  Mary,  an  ugly  little 
creature,  as  she  approaches  the  temple  and  climbs  the 
steps  unassisted  and  with  folded  hands.  And  no  less 
attractive  is  the  episode  of  the  birth  where  we  catch 
sight  of  the  thin  face  of  the  newly  made  mother  hidden 
behind  the  half -closed  curtains. 

Again,  this  artist  has  advanced  in  the  way  he  carries 

*For  changes  of  fashion  see  L.  Balet,  Geertgen  tot  Sint  Jans.    The  Hague,  1910.  p. 

10  et  seq. 

[53] 


THE  ART   OF   THE  LOW   COUNTRIES 

his  figures  into  the  distance.  They  do  not  so  quickly 
change  in  their  dimensions,  without  any  intermediate 
stages,  as  they  do  in  the  picture  of  the  sibyl,  but,  with  a 
certain  intention,  are  ranged  in  gradually  diminishing 
sizes  back  into  the  far  distance. 

It  is  probable  that  the  artist  himself  did  not  deserve 
all  the  credit  for  these  important  forward  steps.  At 
the  time  when  he  created  the  scenes  from  the  Life  of 
the  Virgin  a  greater  master  than  he  —  Geertgen,  the 
painter  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John  of  Haarlem  —  had 
already  appeared,  to  exert  thenceforward  an  influence 
upon  all  the  painters  of  Holland.  This  influence  is  sug- 
gested by  some  of  the  heads  in  the  Life  of  the  Virgin, 
such  as  the  strongly  characterized  old  man  with  a  beard 
behind  the  high  priest,  and  also  by  the  juster  relative 
proportions  of  the  figures  in  the  background.  But 
with  this  artist  as  with  all  others  Geertgen's  influence 
worked  especially  toward  a  more  animated  and  incisive 
individualizing  of  the  personages.  And  from  him  must 
also  have  been  derived  that  manner  of  characterizing 
the  remoter  figures  by  more  emphatic  gestures  which  he 
transmitted  to  all  his  successors  down  to  Jan  Mostaert 
and  Jacob  Cornelisz. 

IV 

GEERTGEN    TOT    SINT    JANS 

Geertgen  was  the  greatest  of  the  early  Dutchmen, 
the  Rembrandt  of  the  fifteenth  century.  It  is  said 
that  when  Diirer  saw  his  work  he  exclaimed,  "Verily, 
he  was  a  painter  in  his  mother's  womb." 

Although  we  are  not  sure  of  the  dates  of  his  career, 
we  may  deduce  them  approximately  from  his  pictures 

[54] 


FOLLOWER    OF    DIRK    BOUTS,    THE    MARRL\GE    OF 
JOSEPH    AND    MARY 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

and  the  brief  remarks  of  van  Mander.  Born,  appar- 
ently, about  the  year  1465,  some  fifteen  years  later  he 
was  working  under  Ouwater  in  company,  perhaps,  with 
Gerard  David  who,  even  before  he  removed  to  Bruges 
in  1483,  was  strongly  influenced  by  Geertgen's  art. 
Geertgen's  brief  activity  filled,  it  seems,  the  decade 
between  1483  and  1493,  upon  which  his  death  soon  fol- 
lowed. Although  he  did  not  become  a  member  of  the 
order  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John  he  lived  with  them  at 
Haarlem,  and  for  them  he  created  his  masterpiece,  an 
altar-picture  of  which  only  a  single  wing,  bearing  on  the 
one  side  a  Pieta  and  on  the  other  a  Burning  of  the  Bones 
of  John  the  Baptist,  is  preserved,  hanging  now  in  the 
Hof  Museum  at  Vienna. 

As  his  career  was  so  brief  it  would  be  rash  to  try  to 
map  out  for  Geertgen  a  course  of  development.  But  it 
may  be  said  that  the  altar-piece  just  mentioned,  with  a 
Nativity  in  private  ownership  at  Berhn  and  the  John 
the  Baptist  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  must  belong  to  his 
ripest  period,  while  the  small  Adoration  of  the  Magi  at 
Amsterdam,  the  Christ  in  the  Sepulchre  at  Utrecht,  and 
perhaps  the  Holy  Fellowship  in  a  church  interior,  likewise 
in  the  Amsterdam  Museum,  must  mark  the  beginning  of 
his  career.  Thus  far  we  know,  in  all,  fourteen  of  his  pic- 
tures. All  are  in  one  and  the  same  style  and  reveal  a  self- 
sufficient  personality  almost  inaccessible  to  outside 
influences,  the  relationship  to  Ouwater  or  Dirk  Bouts 
being  merely  of  the  general  kind  that  exists  between 
painters  of  the  same  school. 

In  the  presence  of  Geertgen 's  pictures  we  distinctly 
feel  for  the  first  time  a  material  relaxing  of  the  tech- 
nical tradition  established  by  the  van  Eycks.     They 

[55] 


THE    ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

lack  the  brilliant  effect,  as  of  enamelled  colours,  and  the 
miniature-like,  sharply  detailed  finish  that  are  charac- 
teristic of  these  elder  masters.  The  colours  are  duller, 
the  handling  is  looser,  revealing  the  touch  of  the  painter 
who  unconsciously  expresses  his  personality  by  the 
stroke  of  his  brush.  The  figures  have  grown  much 
more  plebeian.  They  are  robustly  built  rustic  Dutch- 
men who  have  moved  into  the  city  and  there  achieved 
independence  and  consideration.  The  men  have  osse- 
ous heads,  clean-shaven  faces,  and  gigantic  beards,  the 
women  have  unbeautiful,  long,  chubby-cheeked  coun- 
tenances, the  children  are  broad-headed  and  oldish- 
looking.  The  men  walk  with  a  proud  strut,  the  women 
squat  clumsily  on  the  ground,  the  children  behave  in  a 
rude  grotesque  way.  What  is  great  in  this  Httle  bour- 
geois world  is  the  deep  and  sincere  feeling  of  its  in- 
habitants. So  elementary  is  any  expression  of  joy  or 
sorrow  wrung  from  one  of  these  reserved  and  sturdy 
people  that  the  astonished  observer  cannot  refrain 
from  sympathy.  The  counterweight  to  this  intensity 
of  feeling  is  a  sense  of  humour  fed  by  the  observation 
of  the  discords  of  the  outer  world.  Later  on  we  shall 
find  this  trait  again  in  Rembrandt,  whose  temperament 
on  its  purely  human  side  is  very  like  Geertgen's.  As 
in  Rembrandt's  work,  so  too  in  Geertgen's,  the  humour 
is  of  a  reticent  sort  appearing  only  in  accessory  scenes, 
as  in  the  droll  children  of  the  Amsterdam  Holy  Fellow- 
ship, who  look  like  figures  of  Pieter  Breughel's.  Geert- 
gen  seems  to  have  been  by  nature  serious  and  reflective 
and,  if  we  read  his  works  aright,  was  not  among  those 
who  are  on  easy  terms  with  life. 

As  regards  the  general  development  of  art,  the  most 

[56] 


THE   HAARLEM   SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

important  thing  that  Geertgen  accomplished  was,  per- 
haps, his  preparation  of  the  way  for  the  warmth  of 
sentiment  revealed  in  the  work  of  Rembrandt;  but,  in 
addition,  every  element  of  Dutch  painting  felt  the  stim- 
ulus of  his  art. 

In  his  pictures  the  colours  are,  indeed,  still  bright 
and  varied,  yet  they  begin  to  subordinate  themselves 
to  a  general  tone,  a  warm  red-brown  which  becomes 
reddish  in  the  faces,  giving  them  a  heated  look,  and 
which  already  suggests  the  favourite  colour  of  the 
Dutchmen  of  Rembrandt's  time.  In  his  preference 
for  red  in  the  costumes  Geertgen  became  the  standard 
for  the  whole  Haarlem  school.  We  find  red  as  the  princi- 
pal colour  in  the  pictures  of  all  his  followers  down  to  Jan 
Mostaert  and  Jacob  Cornelisz,  and  at  last  it  becomes  the 
intense  vermilion  which  expresses,  so  to  say,  the  warmth 
of  feeling  of  Rembrandt  and  his  associates  —  Nicholas 
Maes,  Pieter  de  Hooch,  and  others. 

Even  in  the  landscape  backgrounds  of  Geertgen 's 
pictures  a  stronger  feeling  for  tone  is  perceptible.  Al- 
though there  is  still  a  remnant  of  the  traditional  division 
into  a  blue  distance  and  a  brownish-green  middle  dis- 
tance, these  tones  pass  more  gradually  into  each  other, 
and  sometimes  only  a  diminutive  bit  of  the  far  distance 
is  shown.  In  these  landscape  backgrounds  Geertgen 
goes  far  beyond  his  contemporaries,  and  in  some  parts 
of  them  he  often  seems  astonishingly  modern.  Like  the 
great  landscape  painters  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
like  Jacob  Ruisdael  and  Hobbema,  he  loves  hilly  wooded 
regions  interspersed  with  quiet  pools  and  enlivened  by 
one  or  two  solitary  wanderers.  He  still  makes  use  at 
times  of  those  traditional  rocky  motives  which  can 

[57] 


THE   ART   OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

scarcely  have  been  reproduced  from  the  artist's  own 
observation,  and  he  still  renders  distant  details  with  the 
precision  characteristic  of  Primitive  painting.  Never- 
theless we  feel,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Dutch  art,  that  we  are  looking  at  landscapes 
that  might  really  exist,  and  that  have  an  intimate  charm 
which  invites  us  to  visit  them. 

As  yet  we  do  not  know  of  any  authenticated  in- 
dividual portraits  from  Geertgen's  hand  although  a 
portrait  of  the  Burgomaster  of  Schiedam,  dating  from 
the  year  1489  and  now  in  the  Johnson  Collection,  has  a 
close  kinship  with  his  work  and  proves  how  much  more 
simple,  less  anxious  about  details,  and  more  broadly 
inclusive  in  the  expression  of  character,  portraiture  had 
become  since  the  time  of  Dirk  Bouts.  Moreover,  in 
one  of  Geertgen's  pictures  at  Vienna  there  is  a  splendid 
group  of  portraits  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John  who,  as 
the  donors  of  the  altar-piece,  have  their  place  in  the 
devotional  scene.  Here,  as  has  often  been  remarked, 
is  the  starting-point  of  the  Dutch  portrait  group  which, 
later  on,  was  freed  by  Jan  Scoorel  and  Antonio  Moro 
from  its  association  with  religious  compositions,  and 
in  the  seventeenth  century  became  one  of  the  most 
distinctive  branches  of  the  pictorial  art  of  Holland. 

Geertgen's  instinct  for  the  path  that  painting  was  to 
follow  in  his  country  shows  in  a  still  more  striking  way, 
perhaps,  in  two  pictures  that  portray  church  archi- 
tecture. It  was  no  novelty  to  set  a  religious  scene  in  a 
church,  as  did  Geertgen  in  his  Amsterdam  Holy  Fellow- 
ship; not  only  Ouwater  but  also  van  der  Weyden  and 
Jan  van  Eyck  had  supplied  him  with  noteworthy  ex- 
amples.    But  Geertgen  went  much  farther  than  they  in 

[58] 


IX  thp:  maxxer  of  geertgex,  portrait  of  the 

BURGOMASTER    OF   SCHIEDAM 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


THE   HAARLEM   SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

depicting  a  church  interior,  showing  a  Dutch  Gothic 
church  with  the  wooden  vaults  above  the  central  alley 
of  the  nave,  the  flat  board  ceilings  in  the  aisles,  the 
rood-screen,  and  the  decorated  altar,  with  so  much  truth 
and  such  accurate  observation  of  the  incidence  of  the 
light  that  he  stands  as  a  worthy  forerunner  of  the  great 
seventeenth-century  masters  of  interior  architecture, 
like  Pieter  Saenredam  and  Emanuel  de  Witte. 

In  an  interior  view  of  the  cathedral  (the  Church  of 
St.  Bavon)  at  Haarlem,  which  is  mentioned  by  van 
Mander  and  is  still  in  its  original  place  in  the  church, 
he  has  even  bequeathed  us  an  architectural  picture 
independent  of  a  religious  scene;  and  although  it  looks 
as  though  it  had  been  produced  in  connection  with  the 
masons'  guild  of  the  cathedral,  perhaps  as  a  model, 
nevertheless  it  remains  the  first  and  the  only  oil  paint- 
ing of  its  sort  that  has  been  preserved  from  the  fifteenth 
century,  in  the  city  where  afterward,  in  Rembrandt's 
time,  the  great  painters  of  churches  celebrated  their 
triumphs. 

Naturally  such  a  painter  as  Geertgen  was  not  weak 
where  all  the  great  Dutchmen  were  strong  —  in  chi- 
aroscuro. His  conception  of  the  story  of  the  Nativity, 
in  a  picture  now  in  private  ownership  at  Berlin,  was  long 
believed  to  be  the  earliest  in  pictorial  art  with  a  noc- 
turnal setting.  In  all  previous  presentations  of  this 
theme  the  light  had  been  the  light  of  day,  although  the 
artist  had  sometimes  put  a  candle  in  Joseph's  hand  to 
suggest  the  hours  of  darkness.  Geertgen  himself  had 
so  treated  the  scene  in  an  earlier  picture.  In  the 
later  one  he  not  only  renders  the  nocturnal  lighting  with 
admirable   success   but  also   introduces  into   art  the 

[69] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

scheme  of  illumination  which  in  the  next  generation 
Correggio  made  famous  in  Italy.  That  is,  he  makes  the 
light  emanate  from  the  Christ  Child  and  thus  makes 
him,  materially  as  well  as  spiritually,  the  focus  of  the 
scene. 

In  his  broadly  human  aspect,  however,  Geertgen 
ranks  even  higher  than  as  a  factor  in  the  development 
of  the  art  of  painting.  The  painters  of  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  not  excepting  even  Lucas 
van  Leyden,  suffer  from  their  effort  to  express  more 
than  they  have  in  themselves,  and  adhere  to  the  style 
in  vogue  in  their  day.  Geertgen  expresses  himself 
as  he  is,  with  a  natural  simplicity  which,  it  may  seem, 
should  be  the  first  and  most  obvious  trait  of  a  true 
artist  but  is  in  fact  the  rarest.  He  is  able  to  portray 
both  joy  and  grief  with  complete  freedom  of  spirit. 

Excepting  Rembrandt,  what  Netherlander  has  known 
how  to  express  suffering  as  Geertgen  does  in  the  Christ 
of  his  Pieta  at  Vienna?  Intrinsically,  this  Christ  has, 
indeed,  little  of  the  divine,  but  he  is  as  piteous  as  ever 
mortal  could  be.  Silently  and  humbly  he  has  strug- 
gled, and  so  he  is  now  less  gruesome  than  the  dead 
Christ  of  Holbein  whose  open  mouth  still  bears  witness 
to  his  outcries.  Here  only  the  corners  of  the  mouth 
are  slightly  hollowed  by  pain,  and  the  prominent  cheek- 
bones cast  shadows  upon  sunken  cheeks.  The  body 
has  arched  itself  with  the  intake  of  the  last  difficult 
breath,  and  the  lifted  breast  and  sunken  abdomen  rest 
naturally  on  the  mother's  lap.  In  none,  perhaps,  of 
the  innumerable  representations  of  this  theme  has  a 
painter  found  for  the  Christ  so  reposeful  a  position, 
one  that  so  directly  and  profoundly  expresses  the  rela- 

[60] 


GEERTGEN,    PIETA 

HOF    MUSEUM,    VIENNA 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

tion  between  mother  and  son.  In  earlier  pictures 
Mary,  with  a  mediaeval  simplicity  palpably  embodying 
the  deepest  love,  takes  the  whole  corpse  upon  her  lap. 
A  dreadful  idea  —  that  a  mother  should  hold  the  naked 
bleeding  body  with  her  own  hands  upon  her  knees! 
Only  in  a  country  where  the  Mother  of  God  was  not 
a  woman  but  a  goddess  could  such  a  conception  be 
spiritualized,  as  where  the  Madonna  of  Michelangelo 
holds  the  mortal  burden  lightly  upon  celestial  draperies. 
With  van  der  Weyden  and  with  Bouts  Christ  already 
rests  with  his  feet  on  the  ground,  but  Mary  still  encir- 
cles the  awful  form  with  her  arms  and  kisses  its  mouth. 
Geertgen  conceives  his  theme  in  a  more  restrained  way 
than  the  vehement  explosive  van  der  Weyden,  in  a 
more  human  way  than  the  diffident  Dirk  Bouts.  On  a 
white  shroud  Christ  lies  upon  his  mother's  knees;  she 
does  not  kiss  him  or  embrace  him;  in  her  gaze  lie 
adoration,  love,  and  an  unspeakable  sorrow  that  the 
head  should  no  longer  turn  toward  her  pleading  eyes. 
The  communion  between  mother  and  son  is  undisturbed 
and  shut  away  from  all  the  world,  for  the  encircling 
mourners  are  not  saints  of  the  church  who  descant  in 
concert  upon  the  misfortune  that  has  befallen  them  but 
human  beings  who  in  their  sympathetic  grief  have  for- 
gotten external  things.  Abandoning  themselves  to 
their  suffering,  each  one  self-absorbed,  they  weep  in  as 
childlike  a  way  as  Homeric  heroes.  John,  the  beau- 
tiful youth  with  the  elongated  face  and  the  splendid 
curls,  grasps  with  a  large  gesture  the  folds  of  his  cloak, 
to  press  them  to  his  eyes.  He  neither  supports  the 
Christ  nor  consoles  Mary  as  in  the  representations  of 
other  artists.     Mechanically  he  points  to  the  dead  man, 

[61] 


THE   ART    OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

as  though  thinking  of  friends  to  whom  he  is  explain- 
ing the  inconceivable  harshness  of  fate.  The  women 
also  find  no  help  in  themselves,  but  seek  comfort  in 
prayer  or  look  toward  the  observer  as  though  plead- 
ing for  aid.  Hardly  more  self-possessed  are  the  three 
other  men.  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  a  stern  and  daunt- 
less figure,  has  been  brought  to  his  knees  by  the  power 
of  the  Saviour's  meek  personality.  An  old  man  behind 
him  holds  his  head  with  a  naive  gesture,  as  though 
it  threatened  to  sink.  Behind  them  all,  with  a  fixed 
and  quiet  gaze,  stands  an  elderly  man,  great  experi- 
ence and  great  suffering  depicted  on  his  countenance. 

It  is  like  an  epic,  this  picture,  embracing  the  mun- 
dane and  the  spiritual  life  of  man,  the  momentary  oc- 
currence and  the  eternal  existence  of  nature.  Although 
in  the  background  we  see  the  brutal  deeds  of  the  day  on 
Golgotha,  the  foreground  group  appears  like  a  silent 
world  of  sadness.  Or,  if  we  glance  at  the  other  side 
of  the  landscape,  full  of  a  secluded  peacefulness,  we 
feel,  in  contrast  again,  the  tumult  agitating  the  souls 
of  the  friends  of  Christ. 

Although  the  separate  episodes  in  this  picture  may 
seem  to  have  small  connection  with  one  another,  they 
are  conceived  in  the  same  mood,  as  grows  plain  if  we 
look  at  another  of  Geertgen's  works,  an  Adoration  of 
the  Magi  at  Prague.  How  joyless  seem  the  bare  rocks 
of  the  Pieta  and  the  gloomy  wood  with  the  solitary 
pool,  how  displeasing  the  dreary  labour  of  the  men  on  the 
hill,  by  contrast  with  the  fresh  and  living  world  that 
now  opens  to  our  eyes.  Here  again  are  rocks,  but  the 
sun  illumines  them  and  vegetation  clothes  them.  Here 
again  are  wooded  slopes,  but  friendly  cottages  gleam 

[62] 


GEERTGEN,  THE  ADORATION  OF  THE  MAGI 

RUDOLFINUM,    PRAGUE 


THE   HAARLEM   SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

out  from  them  and  palaces  and  castles  are  ranged  up 
the  heights.  And  the  water  lies,  not  apart,  but  amid 
the  cheerful  activity  of  the  village  street;  the  hand  of 
man  has  dammed  and  bridged  it;  its  surface  mirrors 
gayly  dressed,  wide-cloaked  figures  grouped  in  eager 
talk.  For  whom  has  the  landscape  thus  put  on  a  Sab- 
bath garment.'^  For  whom  do  proud  horsemen  on  white 
palfreys  dash  over  the  shining  sand,  to  pause  where  the 
wise  men  of  the  land  philosophically  discuss  a  great 
event.'^  It  is  all  for  the  sake  of  the  little  prince  who  in 
the  foreground  sits,  confident  and  bold,  upon  his 
mother's  lap.  No  Christ  Child  is  this,  with  eyes  full 
of  a  knowledge  of  the  world  and  forebodings  of  suffer- 
ings to  come.  Closer  to  the  northern  painter  lay  the 
conception,  "When  I  was  a  child  I  spake  as  a  child,  I 
understood  as  a  child,  I  thought  as  a  child.'*  Blithely 
the  babe  stretches  out  the  bare  arm  that  is  clasped  by 
the  fingers  of  the  gray-haired  king  and  the  supporting 
hand  of  Mary.  The  fingers  of  his  other  hand  are  con- 
tracted as  though  about  to  grasp  at  the  glitter  of  the 
golden  vase.  But  the  mother,  who  esteems  herself  as 
naught  in  the  presence  of  her  son,  receives  the  adora- 
tion of  the  kings  with  the  modest  self-possession  of 
childlike  natures.  And  the  kings  correspond  in  char- 
acter to  this  gentle  earnest  being.  They  do  not  parade 
into  the  stable  with  steeds  and  cavaliers,  with  pages  and 
soldiers;  as  friends,  dignity  blending  with  modesty,  they 
dedicate  to  the  infant  Christ  their  thoughts  rather  than 
their  gifts. 

As  a  rule  Geertgen  is  the  enemy  of  all  exaggerated 
vehement  gestures;  his  figures  are  born  to  keep  silence. 
In  the  Amsterdam  Holy  Fellowship  he  resolves  the 

[63] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

problem  of  harmonizing  the  personages  and  the  archi- 
tecture by  making,  so  to  say,  columns  of  the  figures. 
Broadly  and  heavily  built  women  with  stony  faces  sit 
upon  the  ground;  men  with  beards  like  primaeval 
forests  stand  about  motionless.  Their  poses  are  care- 
fully calculated:  almost  without  exception  they  are 
shown  in  full  or  in  half  figure  —  seven  of  them  in  full 
face,  three  in  profile,  three  from  the  back.  Only  the 
awkward  intrusions  of  a  couple  of  children  cut  across 
the  structure  of  regular  lines,  like  the  grotesques  on  a 
Gothic  capital.  In  the  same  restrained  manner  the 
unworldly  artist  dealt  with  the  portrayal  of  John  the 
Baptist  in  the  Wilderness.  With  Geertgen,  as  with  all 
the  great  Dutchmen,  the  feeling  for  individual  person- 
ality was  so  strong  that  in  compositions  of  many  figures 
it  was  apt  to  impair  unity,  as  is  the  case  in  the  second  of 
his  pictures  at  Vienna.  It  is  in  the  portrayal  of  single 
figures  that  the  artists  of  Holland  have  often  given  us 
their  very  best. 

Sunk  in  an  endless  reverie  the  Baptist  sits  low  down 
in  a  pleasant  wooded  landscape  of  flowing  lines  that 
lead  the  eye  back  to  a  distance  dotted  with  cities.  He 
takes  no  heed  of  the  animals  that  play  around  him,  of 
the  roe-buck  by  the  water,  the  hares  that  nibble  the 
fern,  or  the  birds  in  the  air,  or  even  of  the  Lamb  that 
rests  beside  him.  Absorbed  in  himself  he  crouches  on 
the  ground.  Nothing  is  left  of  the  typical  art  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  which  represented  the  Baptist  stand- 
ing and  pointing  to  the  Lamb.  Here  he  is  like  all  the 
great  artistic  personifications  of  deep  meditation  — 
the  Melencolia  or  the  St.  Anthony  of  Diirer,  Michel- 
angelo's   Jeremiah    or    Lorenzo    de'    Medici,    Rem- 

[64] 


GEERTGEN,    ST.    JOHN   THE    BAPTIST 

KAISER   FRIEDRICH   MUSEUM,    BERLIN 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

brandt's  young  man  lying  at  the  feet  of  Christ  in  the 
Hundred  Guilder  Print  —  in  that  he  has  seated  himself 
naturally  and  negligently  without  thought  of  the  spec- 
tator and,  as  deep  reflection  paralyzes  physical  effort, 
has  suppressed  all  tendency  to  external  action,  drawing 
his  limbs  together  into  the  smallest  compass  and  press- 
ing his  hands  and  feet  close  to  his  body. 

The  defects  characteristic  of  the  period  —  the  too 
great  height  of  the  point  of  view  in  respect  to  the  land- 
scape, the  detachment  of  the  figures  from  the  back- 
ground, the  discordant  proportions  of  the  people  and 
the  animals  —  do  not  disturb  us  here,  for  all  the 
separate  parts  are  individually  and  largely  observed. 
It  might,  for  example,  be  hard  to  distinguish  the  species 
of  the  trees  and  plants,  as  one  may  do  with  Dirk  Bouts 
who  saw  details  better  than  anything  else,  or  with  the 
van  Eycks  who  were  still  affected  by  the  persistent  medi- 
aeval way  of  working.  Yet  by  subordinating  the  details 
of  a  landscape  to  a  general  impression  Geertgen  achieves 
the  effect  of  a  faithfully  rendered  natural  scene  more 
completely,  perhaps,  than  any  other  Primitive  painter  of 
the  Low  Countries.  It  sufiices  us  that  the  ferns,  the  dan- 
delions, the  thistles,  the  trees,  are  so  shaped  as  to  awaken 
our  general  recollections  of  such  plants.  The  greatest 
landscape  painters  have  not  been  the  best  botanists. 
If  they  had  been,  it  would  mean  that  the  love  of  science 
must  always  be  a  factor  in  art,  as  it  was  with  Durer 
and  Leonardo,  but  not  with  Ruisdael  or  Hobbema  and 
still  less  with  Rembrandt  or  Rubens  in  whose  paint- 
ings even  the  species  of  the  trees  cannot  be  identified. 
Geertgen  was  a  forerunner  on  the  path  that  they  trod, 
a  path  that  led  to  a  stage  where,  in  imaginary  land- 

[65] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

scapes,  living  nature  down  to  the  last  characteristic 
detail  was  infused  with  the  painter's  sense  of  style. 
Unconsciously  Geertgen  was  more  concerned  that  the 
spirit  of  the  artist  should  express  itself  in  the  portrait- 
ure of  every  leaf  than  that  the  pattern  supplied  by 
nature  should  be  distinctly  apparent. 

If  in  this  picture  of  the  Baptist  all  passion  is  immured 
in  the  depths  of  the  soul,  in  another  work  of  Geertgen's, 
which  we  must  look  upon  as  exceptional,  it  bursts  forth 
with  unparalleled  violence.  Here,  in  the  Christ  in  the 
Sepulchre  at  Utrecht,  the  Saviour  is  drenched  with  the 
blood  that  flows  from  his  wounds  in  broad  streams. 
With  a  feeble  hand  he  tries  to  stanch  the  fount  in 
his  gaping  side.  His  tottering  form  is  broken  by  the 
weight  of  the  cross  which,  bulky  and  black,  leans  against 
him.  Great  teardrops  fall  from  his  eyes,  and  all  those 
around  him  —  Mary  and  the  Magdalene,  St.  John  and 
the  angel  —  are  also  weeping.  All  restraint  is  thrown 
aside.  With  a  kind  of  sentiment  that  is  proper  to  the 
north  the  composition  is  shaped  by  the  spirit  of  the 
scene,  the  form  is  as  wild  and  confused  as  its  inner 
significance.  How  impossibly  the  figures  move  in  an 
impossible  place!  We  do  not  see  how  Christ  stays  in 
the  sarcophagus,  how  the  cross  stands,  or  how  the 
Magdalene  kneels  or  Mary  and  John  find  room  for  them- 
selves. The  lines  of  the  tomb  lead  the  eye  toward  the 
distance  in  a  direction  that  is  reversed  by  the  horizontal 
arm  of  the  cross.  The  angels  who,  by  reason  of  their 
relative  size,  ought  to  be  farther  back  are  forced  into 
a  nearer  plane  by  the  way  in  which  they  impinge  upon 
the  contours  of  the  foreground  figures  and  upon  the 
frame.     And  as  the  planes  of  the  picture  thus  intersect, 

[66] 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

SO  the  attitudes  of  the  figures  in  relation  to  one  another 
are  as  strongly  contrasted  as  possible.  The  straight- 
lined  objects  —  the  cross,  the  edge  of  the  sarcophagus, 
the  lances  and  pikes  —  divide  the  closely  filled  surface 
of  the  picture  with  thick  dark  strokes.  And  the  bi- 
secting of  the  figures  by  all  four  sides  of  the  frame 
enhances  the  resemblance  to  a  veritable  scene  from  life. 
Something,  it  is  true,  has  been  done  to  mitigate  this 
impression  as  of  a  frightful  reality.  The  gold  ground, 
which  by  this  time  was  unusual,  and  the  inconceivable 
arrangement  in  an  unreal  place,  label  the  picture  as  a 
work  of  ecclesiastical  conventionalism;  and  that  thought 
of  the  observer  which,  for  the  sake  of  greater  reality, 
was  avoided  in  the  picture  of  the  Baptist,  is  here  ex- 
pressed by  the  attitude  of  the  Christ.  The  apparent 
confusion  of  the  composition  is  solved,  however,  by 
closer  observation.  The  poses  repeat  themselves  in 
regular  rhythm,  three  of  the  figures  are  placed  on  either 
side  of  Christ,  and  in  the  centre  the  design  approxi- 
mates to  a  triangle  the  point  of  which  is  formed  by  his 
head.  But  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  picture  affects 
us  more  strongly  than  the  harmony  of  the  composition. 
We  ask  ourselves.  Is  it  great  art  which  so  stuns  us  that 
we  forget  to  demand  material  beauty.'*  Certainly  it 
is  not  art  of  a  kind  that  can  be  measured  by  the  usual 
tests,  no  more  than  is  the  late  work  of  Rembrandt.  It 
is  a  conflict,  not  a  victorious  procession  like  all  the  art 
of  the  south;  and  it  knows  only  one  kind  of  triumph  — 
the  triumph  of  extreme  individuality. 

The  painter  who  achieved  so  greatly  lived  only 
twenty-eight  years.  But  the  charm  that  marks  artists 
who  die  young,  their  much-bepraised  lovableness,  does 

[67] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

not  irradiate  his  figure.  The  youthful  traits  in  Geert- 
gen  are  his  naively  drastic  way  of  expressing  him- 
self, the  intensity  with  which  he  feels  suffering,  and 
the  simplicity  and  grandeur  with  which  he  portrays 
it,  as  though  he  had  no  time  to  condescend  to  small 
things. 

Among  the  pictures  that  resemble  Geertgen's,  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  is  a  St.  Martin  in  the  Johnson 
Collection  at  Philadelphia.  It  is  too  simple  and  too 
fine  to  be  called  the  work  of  an  imitator,  but  because  of 
the  somewhat  divergent  types  and  the  more  cursory 
treatment  of  the  background  it  can  hardly  be  ascribed 
to  the  master  himself.  It  plainly  shows  the  influence 
of  one  of  those  many  statues  of  St.  Martin  that  were  pro- 
duced, especially  in  Belgium  and  the  north  of  France, 
during  the  last  third  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In  few 
of  these,  however,  can  the  theme  have  been  conceived 
with  as  much  feeling  or  with  such  a  sense  of  style;  in 
few  can  so  much  dignity  and  sincerity  have  been  con- 
ferred upon  the  saint,  so  much  grace,  in  spite  of  all 
defects  in  drawing,  upon  the  horse,  or  upon  the  beggar 
an  air  of  gratitude  so  natural  and  yet  so  free  from  obse- 
quiousness. It  is  as  though  the  artist  wished  to  re- 
strict himself  to  the  expression  of  the  most  important 
things,  and  considered  all  display  of  details  unsuitable 
to  a  scene  of  the  kind. 

Geertgen's  advent  impelled  other  artists  to  take  a 
genuine  interest  in  the  psychological  content  of  their 
themes.  How  highly  the  painters  of  his  time  esteemed 
his  art  is  shown  not  only  by  the  strong  influence  that 
it  exerted  in  every  direction  but  also  by  the  copies  that 
were  soon  made  from  his  pictures.     We  have  three  such 

[68] 


IN    THE   MANXER    OF    GEERTGEN,    ST.    MARTIN 

COLLECTION  OF  MR.  J.  G.  JOHXSOX,  PHILADELPHL\ 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

copies,  dating  from  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
One,  a  sketchy  copy  of  the  Pieta  in  the  Museum  at 
Vienna,  was  made  by  Jan  Mostaert,  the  principal 
painter  of  Haarlem  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  century, 
as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  added  wing-pictures  of 
his  own  composition.  The  two  others,  especially  in- 
teresting as  reproductions  of  lost  originals,  are  the 
painting  owned  by  Sir  Charles  Turner  in  London,  with 
scenes  from  the  life  of  St.  Domenick,  and  the  well- 
known  triptych  in  the  National  Gallery  at  London  with 
the  Madonna  and  saintly  women  in  a  forest. 

The  first  of  these  two  is  a  stately  composition,  of 
somewhat  the  same  kind  as  the  Amsterdam  Holy 
Fellowship,  where  the  apparition  of  the  Madonna  owes 
its  impressiveness  to  the  dignified  yet  simply  human 
way  in  which  it  is  conceived.  The  second  is  particu- 
larly remarkable  for  the  naive  fairy-tale  poetry  of  the 
theme  and  the  marvellous  rendering  of  the  mood  of  the 
forest.  The  unsymmetrical  grouping  and  the  irregular 
association  of  the  different  motives  seem  at  first  sight 
typically  Dutch.  But  this  artless  transcript  from  scenes 
actually  observed  in  nature  is  not  without  artistic  effec- 
tiveness. How  convincing  is  the  naked  awkward  Christ 
Child  whom  the  mother  has  carefully  set  upon  a  cushion 
on  the  ground  so  that  he  may  take  care  of  himself  while 
she  devotes  herself  to  the  perusal  of  a  pious  book !  How 
natural  seems  the  complaisance  of  the  holy  women  and 
the  angels  in  amusing  the  babe,  who  accepts  their  minis- 
trations as  a  matter  of  course !  The  saints  have  lost  all 
trace  of  the  stately  bearing  given  them  in  pictures  of 
the  time  of  the  van  Eycks.  They  are  persons  from 
Geertgen  's  own  environment  who  behave  as  they  think 

[69] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

fit,  unconcernedly  following  their  own  impulses.  One 
of  the  angels  has  interrupted  his  flute-playing  to  bring 
the  women  a  basket  of  fruit,  another  lets  a  stream  of 
water  from  the  spring  fall  upon  a  shell  full  of  cherries,  a 
third  gathers  flowers  in  his  lifted  mantle.  The  saints 
who  wander  in  the  shade  between  the  trunks  of  the  trees 
would  be  undistinguishable  from  aristocratic  town 
ladies  of  the  time  if  they  were  not  leading  a  lamb  by  a 
cord  in  token  of  their  saintliness.  The  orange  trees 
and  cypresses  and  the  deep  blue  sky  with  its  soft  and 
feathery  white  clouds  are  rendered  with  remarkable 
truth,  as  though  the  artist  were  familiar  with  southern 
regions. 

The  close  resemblance  of  the  types  to  Geertgen's, 
and  the  originality  of  the  conception,  have  led  more 
than  one  critic  to  attribute  this  picture  to  the  mas- 
ter himself,  all  the  more  because  the  two  figures  of 
St.  John  on  the  wings  point  to  the  patron  saint  of  the 
order  in  whose  house  he  dwelt  at  Haarlem.  But  keener 
eyes  have  recognized  in  the  work  a  somewhat  later 
Dutchman  who  had  especially  attached  himself  to  elder 
masters  —  to  Memling,  to  Geertgen,  and  still  more  to 
Quentin  Metsys — and  who  made  use  in  his  own  work 
of  their  imaginative  powers.  Friedlander  has  named 
him  the  Master  of  the  Morrison  Triptych,  in  reference 
to  a  painting  owned  by  Mrs.  Alfred  Morrison  in  London, 
which  is  a  free  copy  of  Memling 's  well-known  triptych 
at  Vienna.  As  he  was  not  at  all  deficient  in  inventive- 
ness, very  likely  he  altered  Geertgen's  composition, 
and  it  is  possible  that  he  gave  its  southern  character  to 
the  landscape.  However  this  may  be,  the  picture  is 
one  of  the  most  delightful  creations  of  Early-Dutch  art 

[70] 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

and  one  of  the  masterpieces  among  the  Primitive  paint- 
ings in  the  National  Gallery  at  London. 

V 

PAINTERS    INFLUENCED    BY    GEERTGEN 

Were  there  no  other  proof  of  Geertgen's  importance  it 
might  be  divined  from  the  number  of  pictures  that  re- 
veal his  influence.  In  assigning  these  works  to  their 
places  I  must  cite  a  long  line  of  painters  who  are  not 
always  as  delightful  to  study  as  is  their  great  model. 

Six  artists  demand  attention  above  all  others  as  fol- 
lowers of  Geertgen.  Three  of  them  must  have  been  at 
work  in  Haarlem  at  the  same  time  as  he  or  but  little 
later  —  the- Master  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy,  the 
young  Gerard  David,  and  the  Master  of  the  Antwerp 
Triptych.  The  other  three  —  the  Master  of  Alkmaar, 
Jan  Mostaert,  and  Jacob  Cornelisz  —  won  their  promi- 
nent places  in  the  art  of  Holland  at  a  later  time,  in  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  it  is  therefore 
only  their  early  work  that  concerns  us  here. 

THE  MASTER  OF  THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  LUCY 

As  with  all  great  artists  so  with  Geertgen  we  find 
that  some  of  his  followers  imitate  their  model  so  closely 
that  on  the  surface  their  art  is  deceptively  like  his  own, 
betrayiilg  the  imitator  only  by  a  lesser  intensity  of 
feeling.  It  was  a  painter  of  this  kind  who  produced 
the  altar-piece  representing  the  Martyrdom  of  St. 
Lucy,  now  in  the  Rijks  Museum  at  Amsterdam.  Three 
other  paintings  also  came  from  his  studio  —  a  Cruci- 
fixion in  the  same  collection,  a  similar  picture  now  in 
the  Archiepiscopal  Museum  at  Utrecht  (formerly  in 

[71] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

the  Church  of  St.  Vitus  at  Naarden),  and  a  Descent 
from  the  Cross  in  the  possession  of  Herr  Figdor  at 
Vienna.  These  pictures  are  unhke  in  execution,  for 
the  two  Crucifixions,  hastily  painted,  seem  Hke  the 
products  of  some  great  workshop.  In  general,  an 
antiquated  technique,  which  still  uses  gold  and  silver 
in  the  details  and  especially  in  the  armour,  alternates 
with  a  sketchy  way  of  painting  that  derives,  indeed, 
from  Geertgen's  manner  but  less  surely  hits  the  mark. 
The  types,  even  to  the  reddish  flesh-tones,  are  wholly 
taken  from  Geertgen,  and  the  colours  —  the  warm  red 
conspicuous  in  the  costumes,  the  red-brown  that  domi- 
nates in  the  foreground  of  the  landscapes,  and  the 
greenish-brown  farther  back  —  also  recall  his  pictures, 
although  hotter  and  more  uniform  in  tone.  Probably 
the  artist  often  copied  figures  from  Geertgen's  paint- 
ings, for  some  of  the  motives  seem  almost  too  original 
to  be  his  own.  In  one  case,  indeed,  in  the  Descent 
from  the  Cross,  the  borrowing  can  be  demonstrated: 
the  man  on  the  ladder  who  holds  a  large  hat  in  his  hand 
is  imitated  from  the  kneeling  masculine  figure  in 
Geertgen's  Pieta  at  Vienna.  Both  the  Crucifixions, 
where  the  Christ  and  the  angels  are  most  noticeably  in 
Geertgen's  manner,  originated  perhaps  in  borrowings 
from  the  central  part  of  the  Vienna  altar-piece,  now 
lost  to  us,  for  at  a  later  time,  in  representations  of 
the  crucifixion  by  Jacob  Cornelisz,  we  find  similar 
motives  which  seem  to  have  been  taken  from  Geertgen's 
compositions.  As  is  often  the  case  with  the  imitators 
of  great  masters,  the  influence  on  the  pupil  is  detri- 
mental in  so  far  that  he  adopts  the  simplifying,  sum- 
marizing method  of  his  teacher  without  basing  it  upon 

[72] 


MASTER  OF  THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  LUCY 
THE  CRUCIFIXION 

RIJKS    MUSEUM,    AMSTERDAM 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

a  corresponding  power  and  pregnancy  in  the  rendering 
of  the  forms.  Painters  of  the  rank  of  this  pupil  of 
Geertgen's  would  perhaps  have  done  admirably,  within 
their  limits,  in  the  time  of  the  van  Eycks  when  they 
would  not  have  been  tempted  to  slight  details.  Geert- 
gen  did  away  with  this  miniature-painting,  and  as  a 
result  the  pictures  of  his  followers  look  empty.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  work  of  the  one  whom  we  are  now  con- 
sidering excels  in  decorative  effect  when  seen  from  a 
distance,  as  the  landscape,  the  architecture,  the  cos- 
tumes, and  the  human  forms  are  all  treated  in  broad 
planes. 

The  best  picture  of  the  group  is  the  Martyrdom  of 
St.  Lucy,  which  makes  its  mark  among  the  Primitives 
in  the  Rijks  Museum  by  virtue  of  its  strong  colours  — 
the  warm  reds  and  red-browns,  the  light  notes  of  certain 
white  costumes,  and  the  lively  blue  of  the  sky.  The 
painter  tries  as  hard  as  he  can  to  infuse  his  figures  with 
spiritual  feeling  but  lacks  the  power  to  make  them 
lifelike.  Those  in  the  foreground  especially  have  the 
look  of  dolls,  and  there  is  a  touch  of  the  marionette 
theatre  in  the  way  in  which  one  executioner  stabs  the 
saint,  and  another,  affected  by  the  scene,  wipes  his  eye 
while  the  old  king  stands  morosely  by.  Very  charming, 
however,  are  the  accessory  scenes  of  the  background 
where  the  simplified  treatment  is  better  in  place.  The 
pair  of  lovers  on  the  bench  in  front  of  the  house,  the 
feast  that  is  visible  through  the  window,  and  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  sacrament  to  the  anxious  saint  while 
a  sorrowful  introspective  choir-boy  assists,  are  portrayed 
in  a  lifelike  way  that  reminds  us  of  the  later  genre-paint- 
ers of  Pieter  Breughel's  time. 

[73] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

From  the  few  pictures  by  this  artist  that  are  known 
to  us  we  may  gather  that  he  was  at  work  from  1480 
until  shortly  after  1500.  During  this  time  the  Haarlem 
records  mention  two  brothers,  Mourijn  and  Claes 
Simonsz,  who  between  1485  and  1490  painted  the  wings 
of  the  high  altar  for  the  Church  of  St.  Bavon.  Mourijn, 
who  is  always  named  before  Claes,  appears  to  have 
been  active  for  a  longer  time.  First  mentioned  in  1473, 
he  became  a  widower  in  1478  and  did  not  die  until 
1509.  Perhaps  these  brothers  conducted  the  workshop 
in  which  the  pictures  that  have  just  been  mentioned 
were  produced,  for  the  use  of  gold  seems  to  indicate 
one  of  the  older  painters  of  the  day,  and  the  brothers 
were  explicitly  instructed  by  their  employers  to  use 
gold  in  the  wings  of  the  altar  of  St.  Bavon.  Moreover, 
another  circumstance,  of  a  less  important  kind,  may 
support  the  identification.  The  early  works  of  Jacob 
Cornelisz  prove,  almost  to  a  certainty,  that  he  was  a 
pupil  of  the  Master  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy; 
he  was  a  native  of  Waterland,  and  van  Mander  wonders 
how  so  famous  an  artist  could  come  from  so  poor  a  place; 
but,  as  we  know  from  the  records,  the  Simonsz  brothers 
also  came  from  Waterland,  and  therefore  it  is  natural 
to  assume  that  when  Jacob  Cornelisz  betook  himself 
to  Haarlem  he  went  to  school  to  his  fellow  countrymen. 


GERARD   DAVID 


With  regard  to  the  life  of  another  of  the  artists 
whom  Geertgen  influenced,  the  greatest  of  all  who  fol- 
lowed in  his  steps,  Gerard  David,  we  are  better  in- 
formed. Like  Dirk  Bouts,  David  was  a  Dutchman  by 
birth  and  active  for  a  time  in  Haarlem  but  migrated 

[74] 


MASTER  OF  THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  LUCY 
THE  MARTYRDOM  OF  ST.  LUCY 

KIJKS    MUSEUM,    AMSTERDAM 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF    PAINTING 

to  Flanders  and  lived  there  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
It  is  probable,  however,  that  he  worked  at  Haarlem 
for  a  briefer  time  than  Bouts;  and  as  his  style  was  more 
strongly  affected  by  the  new  environment  at  Bruges, 
there  is  even  less  warrant  in  his  case  than  in  the  case 
of  Bouts  to  claim  him  exclusively  for  Holland.  He 
can  hardly  have  been  more  than  twenty-five  years  of 
age  when  he  left  his  own  country,  and,  less  gifted  by 
nature  with  imagination  than  Bouts,  he  was  constrained 
to  utilize  the  artistic  products  of  his  new  home  for  the 
benefit  of  his  own  art.  Nevertheless  until  the  end  of 
his  life  he  retained  Dutch  characteristics;  and  as  we  are 
fortunate  enough  to  know  a  long  series  of  the  works  of 
his  Haarlem  period  we  are  able  in  some  degree  to  isolate 
what  is  typically  Dutch  in  his  art. 

Dutch  above  all  is  the  seriousness  and  the  sluggish- 
ness of  his  figures,  the  shyness  and  taciturnity  of  their 
deportment  —  traits  which  in  his  riper  period  change 
to  a  noble  dignity  mingled  with  deep  and  tender  relig- 
ious feeling.  Dutch  also  is  that  lack  of  dramatic  power 
which  is  one  reason  why  he  did  not  succeed  much  better 
than  Bouts  with  such  subjects  as  scenes  of  martyrdom, 
like  his  Christ  Nailed  to  the  Cross  in  the  Antwerp 
Museum  or  the  Flaying  of  Sisamnus  in  the  Town  Hall 
at  Bruges.  He  is  dryer  and  less  spontaneous  than 
Geertgen,  colder  in  feeling,  more  impersonal,  and  more 
ecclesiastical.  But  on  the  other  hand  he  can  disasso- 
ciate himself  better  from  the  themes  that  he  treats,  and 
he  pays  more  attention  to  the  form  in  which  he  presents 
them  —  to  symmetrical  balanced  composition,  and  a 
beautiful  and  decorative  use  of  colour  and  line.  His 
strength,  like  that  of  Dirk  Bouts,  lies  in  the  domain  of 

[75] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

the  lyrical,  but  Bouts  is  infinitely  fresher  and  more 
direct  although,  it  must  be  confessed,  more  bourgeois. 
David  is  an  aristocrat;  and  it  is  in  devotional  subjects, 
above  all  in  portrayals  of  the  Madonna  and  Child  ac- 
companied by  saintly  women  or  angels,  of  the  annun- 
ciation, and  of  the  Virgin  lamenting  her  son,  that  he 
achieves  the  greatest  beauty. 

We  get  the  impression  that  in  the  long  run  Geertgen's 
influence  was  not  the  best  for  him;  indeed,  it  is  seldom 
that  one  great  artist  can  educate  another.  David  was 
not  fully  conscious  of  his  own  personality  until  he 
found  himself  in  the  peaceful  environment  of  Bruges 
where  there  were  no  such  progressive  elements  as  at 
Haarlem  and  the  tradition  of  the  great,  almost  im- 
personal art  of  the  van  Eycks  was  still  alive.  When  he 
learned  to  know  their  work  and  that  of  the  gentle 
lovable  Memling,  he  began  to  recognize  the  value  of  the 
highest  technical  finish,  and  developed  for  himself  the 
style  of  much  distinction  with  which  he  created  the 
last  great  examples  of  the  splendid  mediaeval  art  of 
Bruges.  The  works  of  his  early  Haarlem  period  lack 
this  perfect  completeness  of  execution  for  which  Geert- 
gen  cared  little ;  and  as  they  fall  short  of  a  convincing 
accent  of  personality  they  are  rather  meagre  and  empty 
in  effect.  It  is  true  that  some  of  them,  particularly 
the  St.  Jerome  of  the  Salting  Collection  in  the  National 
Gallery  at  London,  testify  that  Geertgen  had  shown 
him  the  way  toward  a  deeper  psychical  expressiveness; 
and  perhaps  to  this  influence,  felt  in  his  days  of  pupil- 
age, may  be  traced  the  impressive  results  which  he 
afterward  achieved  in  some  of  his  work  at  Bruges.  In 
externals  his  Haarlem  pictures  bear  a  close  resemblance 

[76] 


GERARD    DAVID,    THE    VIRGIN    AND    ST.    JOHN 

MUSEUM,    ANTWERP 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL    OF   PAINTING 

to  Geertgen's.  In  the  Christ  Nailed  to  the  Cross,  the 
central  part  of  which  is  in  the  possession  of  Lady  Led- 
yard  at  Venice  while  the  wings  are  at  Antwerp,  and  in 
the  wing-pictures,  showing  John  the  Baptist  and  St. 
Francis,  in  the  von  Kaufmann  Collection  at  Berlin,  the 
types  are  so  like  Geertgen's  that  this  painter  has  often 
been  thought  of  as  their  creator.  The  warm  colour- 
ing also,  with  its  brown  shadows  and  reddish-brown 
flesh-tones,  and  the  broadly  handled  foliage  speak  alto- 
gether of  Geertgen;  later  on  at  Bruges  they  change  in 
accordance  with  the  much  cooler  colouring  of  Flemish 
pictures.  Again,  we  sometimes  find  in  Geertgen  the 
stiff  ranking  of  the  figures  with  their  heads  at  the  same 
level,  but  the  liking  for  it  seems  to  have  been  more 
firmly  rooted  in  the  nature  of  the  younger  artist,  and 
with  its  aid  David  developed  the  austere  monumental 
effects  that  distinguish  his  later  compositions. 

It  has  rightly  been  remarked  that  the  dates  of  Geert- 
gen's career  do  not  fit  in  with  the  belief  that  Gerard 
David  was  actually  his  pupil.  It  is  much  more  per- 
missible to  think  that  David,  who  came  from  the  same 
place  as  Ouwater,  was  Ouwater's  pupil  and  in  his  studio 
made  acquaintance  with  Geertgen.  It  is  nothing  out 
of  the  common  that  the  fellow-student  should  have 
exerted  a  greater  influence  than  the  master.  Here  in 
Holland  we  find  the  same  thing  at  a  later  day:  Rem- 
brandt's influence  upon  those  who  worked  with  him 
under  Lastman,  and  especially  upon  Lievens,  was  much 
stronger  than  their  master's. 

Some  of  the  motives  for  his  compositions  David  did, 
perhaps,  take  from  Ouwater.  For  instance,  there  is 
preserved  in  the  Johnson  Collection  at  Philadelphia  a 

[77] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

version  of  Dirk  Bouts'  Adoration  of  the  Magi  which 
greatly  resembles  three  of  David's  youthful  works,  now 
in  Budapest,  in  the  von  Kaufmann  Collection  at  Berlin, 
and  in  private  ownership  in  France;  and  probably 
Ouwater  transmitted  to  David  this  composition  of 
Bouts'.  Yet  even  here  David  reverted  to  Geertgen's 
conception,  borrowing  the  idea  of  a  nocturnal  setting 
and  using  it  in  a  richer  fashion,  and  in  the  works  that 
he  produced  at  Bruges  many  years  later  we  can  still 
divine  the  strength  of  Geertgen's  influence.  Pictures 
which  were  not  painted  until  ten  years,  perhaps,  after 
David's  change  of  residence,  like  the  beautiful  Adora- 
tion of  the  Magi  at  Brussels  and  the  Tables  of  the 
Law  in  the  Town  Hall  at  Bruges,  and  which  already 
show  the  assimilation  of  Flemish  influences,  still  dis- 
play individual  motives  and  colours  that  unquestion- 
ably trace  back  to  the  great  Haarlem  master. 

THE   MASTER   OF   THE   ANTWERP   TRIPTYCH 

Gerard  David  had  none  of  the  dry  humour  that 
Geertgen  occasionally  reveals  in  the  subordinate  parts 
of  his  pictures.  But  the  temperament  of  another  of 
Geertgen's  pupils,  the  painter  of  the  little  triptych  in 
the  Antwerp  Museum  which  shows  the  Madonna  in 
the  centre  and  St.  John  and  St.  George  on  the  wings, 
seems  to  have  been  in  accord  with  the  master's  leaning 
toward  the  burlesque.  To  the  same  artist  have  rightly 
been  attributed  a  Madonna  with  the  Donors  and  St. 
Michael  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  at  Berlin, 
and  an  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  at  Bonn.  He  comes 
nearest  to  Geertgen  in  the  Berlin  picture  where  the 
narrow-eyed   Mary  is   the   very  image   of  the   great 

[78] 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

master's  Madonna  types.  The  St.  Michael  who  pro- 
tects the  donors  with  a  grand  gesture  as  he  makes 
obeisance  to  the  Child  is  also  quite  worthy  of  the 
master.  To  a  greater  degree  than  most  of  Geertgen's 
pupils  this  one  strives  to  rise  from  petty  genre-like 
conceptions  to  a  monumental  style.  But  he  does  not 
get  beyond  a  good  beginning;  his  handling  is  hard  and 
wooden,  and  in  the  rendering  of  children  in  particular 
he  drops  into  the  grotesque.  Their  droll  irreverent 
behaviour,  the  worldly  appearance  of  his  saints  as  the 
Antwerp  pictures  show  it,  and  the  self-conscious  air  of 
his  Madonna,  make  it  plain  that  religious  sentiment  is 
less  strong  with  him  than  with  Geertgen  or  even  with 
Bouts  and  Ouwater,  and  that,  original  and  powerful 
painter  though  he  is,  he  falls  in  with  the  current  ten- 
dency toward  the  secularizing  of  devotional  pictures. 

While  we  cannot  follow  any  of  these  pupils  of  Geert- 
gen's much  beyond  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
excepting  Gerard  David  whose  development  came  to 
its  full  flowering  in  Flanders,  the  three  others  who  have 
been  named  are  best  known  to  us  in  the  subsequent 
phase  of  Dutch  art,  in  the  first  third  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  pictures  of  their  youth  are  those  that 
reveal  the  influence  of  Geertgen. 

THE   MASTER    OF  ALKMAAB 

This  painter  gets  his  name  from  the  seven  pictures  in 
the  Church  of  St.  Lawrence  at  Alkmaar  which  represent 
the  Seven  Works  of  Mercy  and  bear  the  date  1507. 
He  worked  at  Haarlem  and  has  been  identified  —  cor- 
rectly, it  is  probable  —  with  Willem  Cornelisz,  the 
teacher  of  Jan  Scoorel.     On  the  testimony  of  the  Alk- 

[79] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

maar  pictures  it  was  thought  that  his  art  derived  from 
Geertgen's,  and  this  behef  has  been  confirmed  by  an- 
other painting  from  his  brush,  a  St.  Anne  with  the 
Virgin  and  Child,  recently  in  the  hands  of  a  dealer, 
which  dates  from  about  1490  and  is  very  evidently  the 
work  of  a  pupil  of  Geertgen's. 

It  is  a  votive  picture,  as  is  shown  by  the  two  nuns 
who  kneel  in  the  foreground  in  front  of  their  patrons, 
St.  Francis  and  St.  Stephen.  In  the  centre  Mary  and 
her  mother,  seated  on  either  side  of  the  Christ  Child, 
try  to  attract  him  by  holding  up,  the  one  a  bunch  of 
grapes,  the  other  a  pear.  The  theme  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  this  group  are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  Early- 
Dutch  wood-carvings  such  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
Museum  at  Utrecht  and  elsewhere;  they  appear  in  the  art 
of  Haarlem  as  early  as  in  that  of  Antwerp  and  Brussels; 
and  at  a  later  period  we  find  in  the  art  of  Leyden  also  a 
number  of  interpretations  of  the  same  theme  with  a 
similar  grouping.  The  scene  of  our  picture  is  set,  in 
true  Haarlem  fashion,  in  a  little  garden  encircled  by 
low  brick  walls  and  laid  out  in  terraces  to  make  possible 
the  placing  of  the  personages  one  above  the  other.  The 
most  interesting  figure  is,  perhaps,  the  John  the  Baptist 
in  the  upper  left-hand  corner,  inspired,  as  is  instantly 
apparent,  by  Geertgen's  Baptist  in  the  Wilderness. 
But  what  has  happened  to  the  grand  creation  of  the 
great  master  .^^  In  the  stead  of  a  saint  in  profound 
meditation  we  see  a  quite  cheerful  one  who  plays  with 
his  lamb  as  though  trying  to  put  it  through  a  course  of 
training.  The  crossing  of  the  feet,  which  with  Geertgen 
is  explained  by  the  introspective,  concentrated  mood  of 
the  Baptist,  is  ignorantly  and  awkwardly  copied.     It 

[80] 


THE   HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF    PAINTING 

is  instructive,  also,  with  Geertgen's  carefully  observed 
details  in  mind,  to  notice  how  impossibly  lies  the  mantle 
that  has  been  thrown  over  the  saint's  shoulders,  and 
how  unnaturally  its  folds  are  bunched  on  the  ground 
—  a  typical  example  of  the  way  in  which  Geertgen's 
large  and  significant  conceptions  become  petty  and 
trivial  in  the  paraphrases  of  his  pupils.  The  farther 
away  this  artist  gets  from  Geertgen,  the  less  possible 
it  is  to  make  friends  with  him.  If  he  is  really  identical 
with  that  teacher  of  Jan  Scoorel  who,  according  to  van 
Mander,  made  use  in  dishonourable  ways  of  the  more 
gifted  among  his  pupils,  we  may  almost  read  his  char- 
acter in  the  figures  in  his  pictures,  surly  of  air  with 
squinting,  ill-natured  glances.  In  his  later  works,  for 
example,  in  the  two  large  wing-pieces  in  the  Rijks 
Museum  at  Amsterdam  and  the  picture  in  the  Johnson 
Collection,  these  ugly  and  unsympathetic  types,  angu- 
lar and  wiry  in  movement,  are  especially  numerous. 
Yet  he  proves  himself  an  intelligent  follower  of  Geertgen 
by  the  interest  he  takes  in  effects  of  light,  showing 
particular  pleasure  in  the  rendering  of  cast  shadows 
and  sometimes  using  an  astonishingly  effective  scheme 
of  artificial  lighting.  In  his  stylized  landscape  side- 
scenes,  with  their  steep  rocks  and  overhanging  stretches 
of  meadow,  he  already  suggests  Scoorel,  in  his  cool 
opalescent  colouring,  Lucas  van  Ley  den. 

JAN   MOSTAERT 

Jan  Mostaert  was  the  chief  painter  of  Haarlem  in  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  spite  of  all  the 
charm  of  his  art  it  proves  that  the  local  school  had 
begun  to  decline  and  that  Haarlem  was  about  to  resign 

[81] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

its  leadership  to  other  places  —  to  Leyden,  where 
Engelbrechtsz  and  Lucas  van  Leyden  were  at  work; 
to  Utrecht,  where  Jan  Scoorel  had  appeared ;  to  Amster- 
dam and  the  founder  of  its  school,  Jacob  Cornelisz. 

Mostaert  became  court  painter  to  the  Regent  Mar- 
garet, and  with  him  the  art  of  Haarlem  rose  from  the 
simple  burgher  atmosphere,  in  which  Geertgen  breathed, 
to  a  more  aristocratic  world  of  gay  clothes,  graceful 
movements,  and  fresh  bright  colours.  A  strict  con- 
centration upon  the  tasks  of  a  narrow  local  circle  gave 
way  to  a  lively  interest  in  the  artistic  life  of  neighbour- 
ing places  and,  indeed,  of  other  lands,  to  a  welcoming 
of  foreign  influences,  Flemish  and  even  Italian.  In 
the  'thirties  of  the  sixteenth  century  Mostaert  still 
conformed  to  the  stormily  emotional  style  of  the 
Antwerp  painters,  as  is  shown  by  his  Crucifixion  in 
the  Johnson  Collection;  in  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist 
in  the  National  Gallery  at  London  he  is  swayed  by 
Lombardic  ideas ;  and  toward  the  end  of  his  life  he  seems 
to  have  been  swept  altogether  into  the  channels  of 
Italian  art,  for  van  Mander  cites  a  picture  of  a  Banquet 
of  the  Gods,  a  subject  well  within  the  repertory  of  the 
Italianizing  Haarlem  painters  of  the  second  half  of  the 
century,  such  as  Cornelis  Cornelisz  and  van  Mander 
himself.  Mostaert's  long  artistic  career,  which  cov- 
ered sixty  years,  joins  Geertgen's  great  period  to  the 
period  in  which  the  ablest  Haarlem  painter  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  Frans  Hals,  was  born.  Just  now, 
however,  we  have  to  take  account  only  of  Mostaert's 
early  work,  produced  during  the  last  decade  of  the 
fifteenth  century. 

Two  very  attractive  products  of  the  Haarlem  school 

[82] 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF    PAINTING 

—  a  Tree  of  Jesse  in  the  Stroganoff  Collection  at 
Rome  and  the  Sibyl  and  the  Emperor  Augustus  in 
the  Antwerp  Museum  —  fall  here  into  place,  as  both  of 
them  have  been  tentatively  ascribed  to  Mostaert,  the 
one  by  Friedlander,  the  other  by  HuHn.  That  the  one 
and  the  other  belong  to  the  Haarlem  school  is  made 
manifest  by  the  setting  of  the  scene  in  a  courtyard,  sur- 
rounded by  low  brick  walls  and  gabled  houses,  where 
there  is  no  lack  of  peacocks,  storks,  herons,  and  other 
much-loved  creatures.  The  connection  with  Geertgen's 
art  is  again  proclaimed,  in  the  picture  at  Rome,  by  such 
types  as  the  Madonna  and  the  Child,  by  the  warm 
red-brown  colouring,  and  by  the  amusingly  anecdotal 
manner,  especially  characteristic  of  Jan  Mostaert,  in 
which  the  story  is  set  forth.  Very  original  is  the  com- 
position of  the  Tree  of  Jesse.  The  prophets  do  not 
grow,  head  and  shoulders  only,  from  the  twigs,  as  they 
do  in  all  earlier  representations  of  the  kind,  but  sit 
at  full  length  in  daring  gymnastic  attitudes  on  the 
branches  of  a  realistically  painted  oak  tree  on  the  top 
of  which  the  Madonna  is  enthroned.  The  worthy 
graybeards  of  the  Old  Testament  are  transmuted  into 
elegantly  dressed  young  bucks  who  trifle  with  their 
swords  and  sceptres  and  stick  their  heads  coquettishly 
through  the  maze  of  foliage.  Only  two  of  the  prophets, 
the  oldest  of  all,  have  not  joined  the  climbers  but  stand 
on  either  side  of  the  hoary  Isaiah  where  he  has  fallen 
asleep  under  the  tree,  as  though  they  were  listening  to 
the  youthful  David  who  sits  on  the  lowest  branch  play- 
ing his  harp  with  a  sentimental  air.  The  tendency  to 
romanticism,  to  the  self-conscious  expression  of  feel- 
ing, which  here  at  the  turning  of  the  century  meets 

[83] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

US  for  the  first  time,  began  within  a  few  years  to  de- 
velop among  the  painters  of  the  Low  Countries  into 
a  deHberate  exaggeration  of  sentiment,  into  actual  man- 
nerism. 

In  a  pleasing  form  Mostaert  shows  this  tendency 
again  in  his  Antwerp  picture.  The  courtly  environ- 
ment of  the  Emperor  Augustus,  the  gay  bustle  of  the 
palace  courtyard,  is  admirably  caught.  At  a  respectful 
distance  the  guards,  in  their  fantastic  Landsknecht  cos- 
tumes, stand  around  in  groups  or  promenade  in  the 
loggia  of  the  palace  or  along  the  beautifully  tended 
paths.  Near  the  emperor,  and  holding  his  richly 
adorned  hat,  kneels  a  page  in  a  costume  plentifully 
embroidered  with  the  imperial  initial.  The  sibyl  also 
differs  radically  from  the  good  bourgeois  figure  in  the 
earlier  representation  of  the  theme  that  we  found  at 
Frankfort.  She  seems  entirely  at  home  at  court  and  is 
attended  by  elegant  dames  who  converse  with  affected 
gestures  about  the  miracle  of  the  apparition.  At  the 
back  of  the  courtyard  we  discover  a  little  genre-picture : 
a  young  dandy,  fashionably  attired,  sits  nonchalantly  on 
the  balustrade  in  front  of  one  of  the  palaces,  amusing 
himself,  apparently,  with  a  servant-maid  in  a  red  dress 
and  a  white  apron  who  is  drawing  up  the  bucket  from 
the  well. 

To-day  a  picture  of  this  sort  has  a  special  attraction, 
for  we  are  not  accustomed  to  finding  in  Primitive 
painters  a  consciousness  of  their  own  naivete  —  a  sign 
of  the  coming  of  Renaissance  culture.  We  may  think 
that  when  Jan  Mostaert  conceived  Biblical  and  legen- 
dary stories  as  multicoloured  pictures  of  the  court  in  his 
own  vicinity  it  was  because  a  naive  religious  sentiment 

[84] 


JAN    MOSTAERT  (?)  ,    THE    SIBYL   AND    THE    EMPEROR    AUGUSTUS 

MUSEUM,    ANTWERP 


THE    HAARLEM    SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

led  him  to  translate  the  old  tales  into  the  current 
vernacular;  but  it  was  much  more  truly  because  he 
liked  better  to  study  the  life  of  a  contemporary  court 
than  to  ponder  upon  the  content  of  the  story  to  be 
pictured.  With  the  great  elder  masters,  with  van  der 
Weyden,  Bouts,  or  Geertgen,  we  also  find  contempo- 
rary costumes  but  only  on  the  accessory  figures,  and 
all  thought  of  the  period  is  secondary  to  a  concern  for 
the  idealistic  significance  of  the  representation.  The 
more  exactly,  in  the  progressive  development  of  paint- 
ing, the  fashions  of  the  time  are  reproduced,  the  farther 
religious  significance  departs  from  the  simple  homely 
conceptions  of  elder  days.  This  may  be  still  more 
distinctly  seen  in  the  work  of  Jacob  Cornelisz,  the 
latest  of  the  painters  who  can  be  described  as  under  the 
influence  of  Geertgen. 

JACOB   CORNELISZ 

Jacob  Cornelisz  was  about  of  an  age  with  Jan  Mos- 
taert,  but  as  the  more  popular  painter  of  the  two  he  seems 
more  advanced  than  the  conservative  court  painter. 
No  juvenile  work  of  his  is  known  to  us,  but  the  four  rep- 
resentations of  the  Crucifixion  in  the  Rijks  Museum  at 
Amsterdam,  the  Archiepiscopal  Museum  at  Utrecht, 
the  Johnson  Collection  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  Liech- 
tenstein Gallery  at  Vienna,  seem  to  belong  to  his  earlier 
period  and  probably  were  painted  not  long  after  1500. 
As  has  been  said  already,  the  connection  between  these 
compositions  and  those  of  the  Master  of  the  Martyr- 
dom of  St.  Lucy  is  so  evident  that  we  must  consider  Cor- 
nelisz as  a  pupil  of  this  painter.  Therefore  his  relation  to 
Geertgen  was  indirect,  yet  it  is  clearly  apparent,  not  in 

[85] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

these  paintings  only,  but  in  the  work  of  his  whole  life- 
time. The  oval  faces  of  the  children  in  the  pictures  of 
the  Crucifixion,  the  profiles  with  short  snub  noses,  the 
wooded  backgrounds  with  many-coloured  little  figures 
in  stilted  attitudes,  the  warm  brownish  flesh-tones,  and 
the  frequently  recurring  red  costumes,  all  trace  back  to 
Geertgen.  The  spirit  of  his  teaching  seems  to  speak 
also  in  Cornelisz'  sense  of  the  humour  of  children,  gro- 
tesquely shown  in  an  altar-piece  now  at  Naples,  of 
about  the  year  1512,  and  in  the  Madonna  pictures  at 
Antwerp  and  Berlin.  Finally,  the  love  for  a  naive 
portrayal  of  various  episodes  in  the  background  of  a 
picture  no  longer  strikes  us  as  novel,  nor  does  the  ro- 
mantic air  bestowed  upon  youthful  saints.  The  es- 
sential difference  between  this  artist  and  his  elders  is 
a  result  of  the  passage  of  time.  Massed  composition 
now  takes  the  place  of  a  concentration  of  interest  upon 
a  few  figures.  The  whole  foreground  is  filled  with 
figures,  and  the  remaining  space  back  into  the  depth  of 
the  picture  is  developed  chiefly  by  their  aid.  Instead 
of  a  dramatically  accentuated  incident  we  have  the 
actions  of  crowds  of  people  among  whom  the  princi- 
pal personage  is  often  hardly  to  be  discovered.  Such 
arrangements,  which  demand  perhaps  greater  execu- 
tive ability  than  the  earlier  kind  of  composition  but 
not  the  same  intense  degree  of  feeling,  were  employed 
by  all  Dutch  artists  who  came  under  the  influence  of 
the  Renaissance.  They  belong  to  a  new  period  with 
which  we  are  not  here  concerned. 

With  the  beginning  of  the   sixteenth   century   the 
Haarlem  school  lost  its  unique  position  in  Holland. 

[86] 


JACOB    CORNELISZ,    THE    CRUCIFIXIOIV 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSOX,    PHILADELPHIA 


THE   HAARLEM   SCHOOL   OF   PAINTING 

The  followers  of  Geertgen  still  produced  work  of  im- 
portance in  the  elaboration  of  accessories  and  the 
portrayal  of  graceful  anecdotes,  thus  furthering  the 
development  of  genre-painting;  but  in  all  other  di- 
rections —  in  portraiture,  in  the  depiction  of  architect- 
ure, in  landscape  —  they  were,  if  anything,  retrograde 
as  compared  with  Geertgen.  The  painters  who  made  of 
other  cities  independent  centres  of  art  seem,  however, 
to  have  had  Haarlem  as  their  point  of  departure: 
Jacob  Cornelisz,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  pupil  of  the 
Master  of  the  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy,  Jan  Scoorel  of 
that  Willem  Cornelisz  who  was  probably  identical  with 
the  Master  of  Alkmaar;  and  the  first  of  the  great  paint- 
ers of  Leyden,  Cornelis  Engelbrechtsz,  was  at  the  start 
—  as  for  example  in  his  St.  Anne  with  the  Virgin  and 
Child  at  Amsterdam  —  in  touch  with  the  art  of  the 
Haarlem  school. 


[87] 


IV 

THE  SATIRICAL  WORK  OF 
QUENTIN  METSYS 

OUENTIN  METSYS  stands  in  contrast  toDurer 
somewhat  as  Erasmus  to  Luther  —  an  aristo- 
cratic intelligence  sensitive  to  charm  of  every 
kind  in  contrast  to  the  primitive,  blunt,  and  rugged 
nature  of  a  man  in  heartfelt  sympathy  with  the  plain 
people  whose  very  embodiment  he  is. 

A  new  faith  was  fermenting  in  the  minds  of  strong 
men,  great  and  simple  in  their  modes  of  thought,  who 
had  risen  from  the  lower  walks  of  life,  and  the  masses 
were  staking  their  lives  upon  the  same  ideals.  Mean- 
while, in  a  world  apart,  the  culture  of  a  highly  polished 
upper  class  was  flowering  in  an  art  which,  nourished 
upon  experience  and  knowledge  of  every  kind,  played 
with  forms  and  colours  in  a  self-complacent  dainty  way 
that  bordered  upon  affection.  The  spirit  of  this  culture, 
which  possessed  almost  every  artist  of  the  Netherlands, 
of  Flanders,  and  of  the  Lower  Rhine  countries,  revealed 
itself  differently,  according  to  the  temperament  of  the 
individual  and  the  character  of  the  race.  Mild  and 
charming  with  the  painters  of  Cologne  —  the  Master  of 

[88] 


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is^iuo... 

QUENTIN    METSYS,    OLD    MAN    DANCING 

UFFIZI,    FLORENCE 


SATIRICAL   WORK   OF    QUENTIN   METSYS 

St.  Bartholomew  and  the  Master  of  St.  Severinus  — 
harsher  and  less  graceful  with  the  Dutchmen  Lucas  van 
Leyden  and  Cornelis  Engelbrechtsz,  livelier  and  more 
extravagant  with  the  Flemings,  everywhere  it  betrayed 
itself  by  the  same  effort  to  express  a  subtile  elegance  and 
the  greatest  possible  degree  of  sensibility. 

More  than  any  one  else  Quentin  Metsys  seems  to  have 
been  swayed  by  this  spirit.  Opalescent  tones  melting 
into  one  another  envelop  the  nervous  play  of  facial 
expression  and  gesture  in  his  etherealized  personages. 
Women  of  a  goddess-like  delicacy,  with  almond  eyes  and 
long  slim  fingers,  live  a  mystical  life  among  transparent 
glassy  columns  and  carpets  with  exotic  embroideries. 
Diaphanous  veils  are  wound  in  their  hair,  sparkling 
jewels  encircle  bosom  and  wrist,  golden  ornaments  and 
carvings  heighten  the  splendour  of  thrones  and  canopies. 
The  men  have  an  air  of  distinction,  their  compressed 
lips  show  intelligence,  their  gestures  a  consciousness 
of  their  own  greatness.  They  know  how  to  speak  wisely, 
to  bear  themselves  proudly.  It  seems  strange  enough 
to  find  wild  rude  fellows  with  hanging  noses  and  wide 
mouths  suddenly  appearing  in  this  select  circle,  to  the 
apparent  destruction  of  all  harmony.  But  in  fact  this 
startling  contrast  has  a  salutary  effect.  At  one  stroke 
uncouth  Flemish  vehemence  cools  an  atmosphere  over- 
heated by  excessive  sensibility.  The  reaction  in  the 
mood  of  the  creative  artist  is,  however,  so  violent  that 
he  now  leans  as  far  toward  caricature  as  he  did  before 
toward  sentimentality. 

Often  and  with  good  reason  Quentin  Metsys  has 
been  compared  to  Leonardo  da  Vinci.  In  his  work  as 
in  Leonardo's  the  contours  are  effaced  by  filmy  shadings; 

[89] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

he,  too,  takes  pie?,  -.ure  in  giving  his  figures  a  feminine 
dehcacy,  even  to  a  weakening  of  the  mascuHne  type; 
and  with  him  also  reaction  means  the  depicting  of 
monsters.  But  while  Leonardo,  as  an  Italian,  had  an 
inborn  distinction  a',  a  nature  that  demanded  modera- 
tion in  all  things,  Quentin  Metsys,  striving  for  mastery 
in  one  thing,  often  lost  the  feeling  for  another. 

Moreover,  the  work  of  the  sou^^^ern  artist  was  known 
to  the  northerner.  This  is  evident  in  certain  drawings 
in  the  Uffizi  at  Florence  which  are  there  attributed  to 
Pieter  Breughel  the  Elder,  but  are  much  more  probably 
the  work  of  Quentin  Metsys  and  are  doubly  noteworthy 
as  a  complete  revelation  of  his  contradictory  char- 
acteristics. They  might  be  studies  for  a  kirmess  with 
dancing  carousing  peasants  —  a  picture  that  would 
have  been  unspeakably  grotesque.  A  bald  and  beard- 
less, misshapen  old  man  with  an  abnormally  large 
head  and  spindle  shanks  is  dancing,  a  satanic  smile  on 
his  lips.  Another,  running  with  outstretched  hands, 
throws  his  skirts  to  the  wind.  A  third,  who  looks  like 
an  old  toper,  staggers  drunkenly  about  with  tucked- 
up  sleeves.  Again,  a  horrible  trio  of  old  men  are  drink- 
ing together;  the  dreadful  long  nose  of  one  of  them  dips 
into  the  contents  of  the  cup  that  he  is  draining  with 
indescribable  gusto,  while  the  others  —  the  standing  one 
holding  a  jug,  the  second  crouching  on  the  ground  — 
are  trying  with  bizarre  grimaces  to  take  the  cup  away 
from  him.  And  on  a  fifth  sheet  an  old  man  with  a 
cudgel  is  striking  at  a  man  lying  on  the  ground  and 
clothed  only  in  a  scanty  mantle  and  a  loin-cloth. 

Such  drawings  reveal  a  remarkable  mental  state. 
What  a  contrast  between  these  grimacings  and  these 

[90] 


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4V, 


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QUENTIN    METSYS,    THREE    MEN    CAROUSING 

TJFFIZI,    FLORENCE 


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QUENTIN   METSYS,    SEDUCTION 

COLLECTION    OF    THE    COUNTESS    POURTALES,    PARIS 


SATIRICAL   WORK   OF   QUENTIN   METSYS 

artistically  managed  gestures,  between  these  coarse 
contours  and  the  nervous  touch  that  tremulously 
follows  every  hair  and  every  wrinkle!  The  same 
contrast  appears  in  other  works  by  the  same  hand,  as 
in.  the  grotesque  couple,  on  a  panel  belonging  to  the 
Countess  Pourtales  in  Paris,  composed  of  a  handsome 
artful  affected  minx  and  a  horrible  old  man  who  makes 
coarse  advances  to  her,  and  in  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi 
formerly  in  the  Rodolphe  Kann  Collection  at  Paris  and 
now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  at  New  York,  which 
shows  a  delicate  Madonna,  a  diminutive  Child  with 
small  refined  features,  a  grizzled  old  king,  and  a  throng 
of  attendants  grotesque  and  sensual  of  face.  There  is  a 
certain  kinship  with  the  satires  of  Erasmus  in  these 
pictures,  altogether  different  in  spirit  from  the  outbursts 
of  wholesome  bourgeois  humour  in  a  Durer  or  a  Luther. 

It  is  known  that  Diirer  came  into  personal  relations 
with  the  cultivated  circles  of  Antwerp.  He  drew  the 
great  scholar  of  Rotterdam  busy  with  a  sharply  pointed 
pen  over  some  intricate  piece  of  work,  and  received 
in  payment  from  Erasmus  a  Spanish  mantilla.  He  also 
visited  "Master  Quentin"  in  his  home,  and  we  can 
imagine  how  he  laid  his  knotted  fingers  in  the  nervous 
hand  of  the  slender  Antwerp  painter,  how  he  must  have 
marvelled  at  the  elegant  fittings  of  the  studio.  In  his 
journal  he  expresses  his  wonder  at  the  furnishings  of  the 
guild-house  of  the  painters  of  Antwerp,  at  the  silverware 
and  the  choice  viands  with  which  their  table  was  spread; 
and  after  his  visit  to  St.  Michael's  Abbey  he  exclaims : 
*'  In  Antwerp  they  are  not  sparing  of  such  things,  for  there 
they  have  plenty  of  money."  It  is  touching  indeed 
when  at  one  place  he  remarks  that,  for  the  entry  of 

[91] 


THE   ART  OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

Charles  V,  the  painters  and  cabinet-makers  of  Antwerp 
had  erected  a  triumphal  arch  at  a  cost  of  four  thousand 
guilders,  and  immediately  afterward  records  among  his 
scanty  earnings  the  sale  of  sixteen  prints  of  his  Little 
Passion  at  four  guilders  apiece. 

We  can  hardly  wonder  that  at  Antwerp  the  Ger- 
man artist,  avid  of  new  impressions,  was  touched  by 
artistic  influences  which  he  turned  to  good  account. 
For  example,  his  St.  Jerome,  now  in  the  museum  at 
Lisbon,  has  an  affinity  with  the  conception  of  Metsys. 
The  inspiration  is  generally  thought  to  have  come 
from  Diirer  and,  in  fact,  there  are  numerous  more  or 
less  faithful  Dutch  copies  of  Diirer's  picture,  which 
remained  for  several  years  at  Antwerp;  in  especial, 
variants  of  it  were  constantly  produced  in  the  studios 
from  which  came  the  group  of  artists  who  go  by  the 
name  of  the  pseudo  Herri  met  de  Bles,  and  in  others 
which  had  relations  with  the  Master  of  the  Death 
of  the  Virgin.*  Nevertheless  the  original  conception 
must  have  been  Quentin  Metsys'.  From  his  Money 
Changers,  now  in  the  Louvre,  which  was  painted  be- 
fore Diirer's  visit  to  Antwerp,  it  is  only  a  short  step 
to  the  half-length  of  St.  Jerome.  It  is  true  that  no 
original  of  Metsys'  composition  has  yet  been  discovered, 
but  there  are  half-length  representations  of  the  saint, 
indoors  and  out  of  doors,  painted  by  Metsys'  followers 
—  Marinus  van  Roymerswaele,  Jan  van  Hemessen,  and 
others  —  which  stand  much  nearer  to  his  manner  of 
conception  than  to  Diirer's. 

*  To  give  a  few  among  dozens  of  examples  I  may  cite  the  pictures  at  Carlsruhe,  at 
Schleissheim,  and  at  Genoa  (Palazzo  Bianco),  and  those  in  the  Uffizi,  in  the  John- 
son Collection  at  Philadelphia,  and  in  the  collection  of  Dr.  Stillwell  of  New 
York. 

[92] 


QUENTIN   METSYS,    ST.    JEROME 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


SATIRICAL   WORK   OF   QUENTIN   METSYS 

However  this  may  be,  whether  it  was  Diirer  or 
Metsys  who  inspired  the  other,  it  is  precisely  in  the 
picture  where  superficially  they  draw  nearest  to  each 
other  that  their  difference  in  character  most  clearly 
appears.  Compare  DUrer's  picture  at  Lisbon  with  one, 
recently  discovered  and  attributed  by  Friedlander  to 
Metsys  and  now  in  Mr.  Johnson's  collection,  which 
shows  St.  Jerome  at  half-length  standing  against  a 
landscape  background.  Diirer  portrays  a  passionately 
studious  scholar  striving  for  a  knowledge  of  the  truth, 
a  gloomy  ascetic  with  a  wild  and  staring  glance  who 
tries  by  sheer  force  of  will  to  penetrate  the  world  of 
thought.  He  has  arrived  at  a  conviction  of  the  noth- 
ingness of  existence  and  endeavours  to  impose  it  upon 
others  by  insistently  pointing  to  the  skull.  With 
Quentin  Metsys,  on  the  other  hand,  we  see  a  peaceful 
monk,  absorbed  in  quiet  prayer,  who  half  sadly,  half 
ecstatically  gives  himself  up  to  the  mysteries  of  religion, 
and  who  has  come  to  terms  with  the  world  in  a  re- 
signed yet  not  wholly  joyless  spirit.  With  Diirer 
every  line,  every  detail  appears  as  clearly  and  sharply 
as  does  the  determined  mood  of  the  saint.  With 
Metsys  everything  melts  into  soft  forms,  into  a  mystic 
twilight  from  which  gleam  out  only  the  deep  red  of  the 
saint's  mantle  and  the  pale  tone  of  the  dying  sunset. 
Metsys  is  less  forceful  than  Diirer  but  more  subtile 
in  the  rendering  of  delicate  shades  of  feeling,  and  is 
therefore  particularly  well  suited  to  our  time  which  has 
a  special  liking  for  these  psychological  semitones.  No 
one  else  among  the  elder  Dutchmen  abandons  himself 
so  gladly  to  dreamy  mystical  sensations  and  unusual 
delights  of  line  and  hue.     None  understands  as  well  as 

[93] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

Metsys  how  to  make  strong  splendours  of  colour  shine 
through  a  thin  veil  of  mist,  or  how  to  paint  the  tremu- 
lous surface  of  life  so  that  we  see  the  blood  running  in 
the  veins,  so  that  we  feel  the  breath  that  comes  from 
the  slightly  parted  mouth,  and  divine  the  movement  of 
the  lips,  the  trembling  of  the  nostrils,  and  the  quivering 
of  the  nerves  in  the  tips  of  the  fingers. 


[941 


V 

THE  BROTHERS  GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL 
CAMPHUYSEN 

NOT  many  of  those  among  the  genre-painters  of 
Holland  whose  main  province  was  the  landscape 
with  animals  rose  above  mediocrity.  Five 
of  them  —  Albert  Cuyp,  Paul  Potter,  Isack  van  Ostade, 
Adriaen  van  der  Velde,  and  Philip  Wouwerman  —  have 
always,  and  of  right,  borne  the  most  famous  names. 
But  because  of  the  general  change  in  taste  from  the 
romanticism  of  the  middle  of  the  last  century  to  a  love 
for  the  sincere  unvarnished  interpretation  of  nature, 
certain  of  their  fellows,  such  as  Berchemand  Lingelbach, 
Dujardin,  van  Bergen,  Both,  and  Pynacker,  who  until 
about  thirty  years  ago  were  ranked  as  high,  please  us 
much  less  to-day.  When  an  exceptional  personality 
like  Rembrandt's  does  not  absolutely  impose  upon  us 
its  own  way  of  looking  at  nature,  we  would  rather  read 
sentiment  into  a  picture  ourselves  than  accept  it  as 
prescribed  by  an  artist  of  lesser  genius.  The  Dutch 
painters,  once  so  greatly  prized,  who  depicted  Italian 
landscapes  virtually  from  hearsay,  had  not  enough 
imaginative  power  to  make  their  dreams  of  the  south 

[95] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

convincing.  Sentimentality  took  its  place,  and  well- 
endowed  artists,  who  might  have  done  admirably  in 
simple  transcripts  from  their  own  surroundings,  pro- 
duced untruthful  sugary  pictures  which  in  their  lack 
of  substance  ill-beseem  the  strong  and  sober  Dutch 
character. 

In  times  of  changing  taste,  however,  we  are  apt  to  go 
too  far  in  the  way  of  elimination.  To  give  an  instance, 
two  of  the  five  great  painters  just  named,  Adriaen  van 
der  Velde  and  Philip  Wouwerman,  had  almost  been 
condemned  when,  fortunately,  it  was  discovered  that 
they  had  joined  the  company  of  the  merely  clever  only 
at  times,  in  their  later  years,  and  that  both  had  pro- 
duced masterly  works  of  a  genuine  Dutch  sort  —  van 
der  Velde  in  his  unpretentious  silvery  paintings  of 
forests  or  pastures,  done  between  1657  and  1661,  and 
Wouwerman  in  his  pictures  of  sand-dunes,  often  almost 
void  of  figures,  and  occasionally  in  his  winter  land- 
scapes. 

It  is  much  easier  to  reject  what  no  longer  appeals  to 
us  than  to  discover  works  of  other  kinds  which  may 
satisfy  our  new  needs.  Yet  the  storehouse  of  the  past 
is  so  rich  that  the  seekers  of  every  period  may  make  their 
own  discoveries,  and  find  substitutes  for  the  famous 
figures  that  are  gradually  sinking  back  into  obscurity. 
Two  painters  who,  with  the  art-lovers  of  to-day,  may 
well  take  the  place  of  such  as  Berchem  or  Lingelbach  are 
Govert  Camphuysen  and  his  brother,  Raphel  Dircksz 
Camphuysen. 

As  regards  the  history  of  the  Camphuysen  family, 
Bredius  and  Moes  have  done  good  service  in  their 
thorough  treatise  published  in  Oud  Holland  in  1903. 

[96] 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

So  carefully  have  they  considered  the  work,  not  only 
of  G overt,  but  also  of  an  elder  pair  of  brothers,  Rafel 
and  Jochem  Camphuysen,  that  in  respect  to  details  of 
fact  I  may  here  confine  myself  to  a  brief  summary. 

Two  generations  are  brought  to  our  notice.  Rafel 
and  Jochem  Camphuysen,  working  from  about  1620 
to  1660,  belong  to  the  first  period  of  the  Dutch  art  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  the  time  of  Frans  Hals  and 
van  Goyen.  Rafel  painted  winter  scenes  and  pictures 
of  canals  in  the  style  of  the  period,  simple,  colourless, 
and  definite;  Jochem,  by  preference,  woodland  scenes 
at  an  evening  hour,  somewhat  in  the  spirit  of  Aert 
van  der  Neer  but  harder  and  emptier  in  drawing  and 
composition.  One  of  the  few  examples  of  Jochem's 
work  that  is  signed  in  full  was  formerly  in  the  Dahl 
Collection  in  Dusseldorf  and  is  now  in  the  Johnson 
Collection  in  Philadelphia. 

As  neither  of  these  brothers  is  an  important  repre- 
sentative of  van  Goyen's  period  neither  excites  more 
than  a  passing  interest.  The  family  of  artists  to  which 
they  belonged  accomplished  its  best  in  the  work  of 
Govert  Camphuysen,  a  really  important  artist,  and 
of  his  brother,  Raphel  Dircksz,  a  painter  still  quite 
unknown,  for  they  were  at  work  when  Dutch  painting 
was  in  its  splendid  maturity,  in  the  time  of  Rembrandt. 
Although  Raphel  Dircksz  was  the  elder  of  the  two,  the 
witness  of  his  style  and  the  fact  that  he  lived  twenty 
years  longer  than  Govert  incline  us  to  place  him  in  the 
third  period  of  the  seventeenth-century  art  of  Holland. 
We  shall  find  him  an  admirable  exponent  of  the  Dutch 
classic  style,  still  too  little  esteemed,  of  the  sixth  and 
seventh  decades  of  the  century.     Thus  the  Camphuysen 

[97] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

family  illustrates  in  miniature  the  development  of  Dutch 
art. 

The  main  fact  in  Govert's  career  is  that  he  lived  for 
ten  years  in  Sweden.  Born  at  Gorkum  in  1623  or 
1624,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two  he  moved  to  Amsterdam 
where  he  stayed  about  six  years.  Then  followed  the 
years  in  Sweden,  from  about  1652  to  1663,  and  then  a 
second  period,  of  ten  years,  at  Amsterdam,  ending  with 
his  death  in  1672. 

It  is  not  recorded  why  he  went  to  Sweden,  a  country 
then  virtually  unknown  to  the  painters  of  Holland, 
but  we  may  guess  how  it  happened.  As  a  result  of  the 
Baltic  trade  of  the  Dutch  their  architects  had  won  a 
footing  in  Sweden  as  well  as  in  the  other  Baltic  coun- 
tries, and  in  the  year  1652  one  of  the  greatest  of  them, 
Jost  Vinckboons,  the  creator  of  the  Trippenhuis  at 
Amsterdam,  was  called  to  Stockholm  to  take  charge 
of  the  erection  of  the  Ridderhuset,  the  senate  chamber 
of  the  aristocracy.  Although  he  stayed  only  four  years 
he  impressed  his  genius  upon  the  Ridderhuset  which, 
except  for  the  addition  of  a  French  roof,  was  completed 
according  to  his  plans.  Perhaps  the  most  beautiful 
Dutch  building  in  any  foreign  country,  it  is  one  of  the 
chief  ornaments  of  a  city  rich  in  important  seventeenth- 
century  structures  that  show  a  Dutch  influence.  As 
Govert  Camphuysen  probably  came  to  Sweden  in  the 
same  year  as  Vinckboons  and,  like  Vinckboons,  must 
have  had  relations  with  the  aristocracy,  for  we  soon 
hear  of  commissions  from  the  court,  it  is  natural  to 
suppose  that  the  Amsterdam  painter  was  directly  or 
indirectly  induced  by  the  Amsterdam  architect  to  make 
the  journey  to  the  northern  city. 

[98] 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

It  can  hardly  have  been  by  virtue  of  his  personal 
merits  only  that  a  simple  painter  of  pasture-lands  and 
cattle  won  a  footing  in  a  foreign  land  and  even  attained 
to  honour  at  a  foreign  court.  More  probably  his  success 
was  largely  due  to  the  high  repute  which  in  his  time 
Dutch  art  enjoyed  in  stranger  lands.  The  influence 
that  the  art  of  any  country  exerts  beyond  its  own 
borders  is  usually  a  result  of  over-production.  In  the 
middle  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  Holland  pos- 
sessed such  a  multitude  of  artists  that  she  could  spare  of 
her  wealth  to  the  foreigner  and,  indeed,  was  obliged  to 
do  so  if  her  painters  were  to  gain  a  livelihood.  At 
home,  private  and  public  buildings  were  pretty  well 
filled  with  pictures  and,  as  commissions  fell  off,  the 
artist  was  all  the  more  ready  to  welcome  the  call  of 
foreign  countries.  On  the  other  hand,  these  countries 
gladly  received  the  influence  of  Dutch  art,  for  it  had 
then  attained  to  heights  whence  it  was  visible  from 
afar,  and  was  beginning  to  serve  not  merely  local  needs 
but  those  of  the  whole  civilized  world.  Sweden  was 
not  the  only  country  visited  by  Dutch  artists.  They 
streamed  at  the  same  time  into  Germany  and  England, 
France  and  Italy,  Denmark  and  Norway,  and  even  into 
regions  beyond  the  sea.  To  name  only  a  few,  we  find 
one  still-life  painter,  Jan  Weenix,  at  Dusseldorf,  and 
another,  Hendrik  Fromentiou,  at  the  court  of  Berlin. 
Ter  Borch  was  busy  at  the  peace  conference  at  Miin- 
ster  in  the  year  1648.  In  England  Dutch  portrait 
painters  in  particular  —  Jansen  van  Ceulen,  My  tens, 
Hanneman,  Lely  —  quickly  achieved  success.  France 
showed  favour  to  genre-painters  who  took  their  themes 
from  the  life  of  the  court,  painters  like  Caspar  Netscher 

[99] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

or  Jacob  van  Loo,  the  founder  at  Paris  of  the  family  of 
artists  of  this  name.  The  portrait  painters  Jacob 
Wuchters  and  Juriaen  Ovens  and  also  the  younger 
Karel  van  Mander,  a  painter  of  heroic  compositions, 
were  at  work  in  Denmark.  And  to  Norway  had  already 
drifted  Allaert  van  Everdingen,  an  excellent  landscape 
painter  whose  impressions  of  the  north  reacted  upon 
Dutch  art  in  the  work  of  Jacob  Ruisdael.  It  is  not 
strange,  therefore,  that  Camphuysen  should  have  ad- 
ventured in  a  region  where  he  may  well  have  seen  wide 
opportunities  opening  before  him  as  the  first  representa- 
tive of  the  pictorial  art  of  Holland. 

The  course  of  his  development  must  have  been  deter- 
mined during  the  six  years  that  he  had  previously  spent 
at  Amsterdam.  Here  he  must  have  come  into  relations 
with  Paul  Potter,  with  whose  work  his  own  has  so  often 
been  confused  that  more  than  half  his  pictures  are  still 
mistakenly  assigned  to  Potter.  It  is  true  that  Potter 
was  by  three  years  the  younger,  but  he  developed  very 
early  and  appears  to  have  been  of  a  simple,  self-sufficient 
nature.  Nor  need  we  assume  that  in  the  relations  of 
the  two  artists  Potter  alone  had  anything  to  give. 
Perhaps  they  jointly  formed  their  style.  At  all  events, 
in  many  of  their  pictures  they  are  much  alike  as  regards 
the  peasant  types,  the  occasional  preference  for  a 
plein  air  kind  of  treatment,  and  the  lively  stippled 
handling,  each  retaining,  nevertheless,  his  own  artistic 
personality  —  Potter's  narrow  but  within  its  limits 
well-rounded  and  complete;  Camphuysen's  deficient  in 
certain  directions  but  studious,  experimental.  Camp- 
huysen may  have  been  influenced  also  by  the  precocious 
Isack  van  Ostade,  who  was  of  about  the  same  age,  even 

[  100  ] 


GOVERT    CAMPHUYSEN,    PORTRAIT    GROUP 

MUSEUM,    STOCKHOLM 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

though  Ostade  lived  at  Haarlem,  for  the  currents  of 
art  flowed  freely  back  and  forth  between  that  city 
and  Amsterdam.  Occasionally  Camphuysen's  outdoor 
scenes,  like  the  Halt  at  the  Tavern,  but  more  especially 
his  interiors  flooded  with  a  golden  light,  remind  us  in 
theme  and  in  conception  of  Ostade's  more  naive  and 
more  charming  art.  With  Cuyp,  again,  Camphuysen 
has  sometimes  been  confused,  as  in  a  small  portrait 
group  in  an  open-air  setting  in  the  museum  at  Stock- 
holm. There  are,  in  fact,  resemblances  in  the  foliage 
and  in  the  way  that  the  light  falls  on  the  trees,  but  of  a 
kind  as  easily  explained  by  a  current  tendency  evident 
in  almost  all  the  landscapes  of  Rembrandt's  time  as 
by  a  direct  relationship  between  Camphuysen  and  the 
Dordrecht  painter  who  worked  at  a  distance  from  the 
cosmopolitan  activities  of  Amsterdam. 

As  only  a  very  few  of  Camphuysen's  pictures  are 
dated,  little  more  can  be  said  about  his  development. 
To  his  first  Amsterdam  period  probably  belong  most 
of  his  kitchen  and  stable  interiors,  two  of  which,  ac- 
cording to  Bredius,  are  dated  1645  and  1650,  and  also 
perhaps  some  of  his  landscapes,  particularly  those,  like 
The  Farm  near  the  Village,  owned  by  Mr.  Johnson,  and  a 
similar  painting  sold  at  auction  by  Frederick  Muller  at 
Amsterdam  in  1912,  where  the  technique  is  Paul  Potter's. 
To  his  Swedish  period  may  presumably  be  assigned  all 
the  works  that  are  now  in  Sweden,  listed  to  the  number  of 
twelve  in  Olof  Granberg's  valuable  treatise  on  the  pri- 
vate collections  of  the  country.  They  include  all  sorts 
of  subjects  —  stable  interiors,  peasant  brawls,  pictures 
of  poultry,  cattle-pieces,  and  even  one  portrait,  with 
which  must  be  placed  the  portrait  group  in  the  Stock- 

[1011 


THE    ART   OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

holm  Museum,  painted  (as  it  bears  the  date  1661)  toward 
the  end  of  Camphuysen's  stay  in  Sweden.  To  the 
last  decade  of  his  life  doubtless  belong  important  works 
like  the  great  woodland  landscape  in  the  Hermitage  at 
St.  Petersburg,  the  Halt  at  the  Tavern  in  the  Johnson 
Collection,  and  the  Pasture  near  the  Castle  in  the  Wallace 
Collection  at  London  —  carefully  composed  canvases,  all 
conceived  in  the  same  mood,  where  the  figures  are  better 
proportioned  and  less  rude  in  effect  than  in  earlier  ex- 
amples, and  more  often  represent  persons  of  an  upper 
class. 

As  was  the  case  with  all  the  important  painters  of 
Rembrandt's  time,  Camphuysen  did  not  confine  himself 
to  a  single  narrow  range  of  subjects  so  that  they  be- 
came a  mere  basis  for  the  application  of  a  good  formula. 
Instead  of  that  exaltation  of  the  exterior  aspect  above 
all  else  which  had  prevailed  in  the  time  of  Frans  Hals, 
the  pictorial  content  came  again  to  the  front.  Great 
masters  like  Rembrandt  treated  it  imaginatively;  lesser 
ones,  who  had  to  depend  more  upon  direct  observation, 
thought  to  make  their  art  more  interesting  by  varying 
their  themes.  Thus  Camphuysen  seizes  upon  all  the 
diverse  incidents  of  the  rural  life  of  Holland,  painting 
kitchen  and  stable  interiors,  tavern  scenes,  meadow 
landscapes,  park  views,  cattle  markets,  farmyards, 
chickens  and  ducks,  and  portraits.  Even  a  bear  fight 
and  an  equestrian  portrait  are  named  as  among  his 
legacies.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  one  kind  of  subject- 
matter  or  another  suited  him  best  —  only,  that  he  was 
perhaps  least  successful  in  portraiture  and  that  he  was 
particularly  good  in  landscapes  with  cattle,  although 
in  other  directions  he  sometimes  did  equally  well. 

[102] 


G OVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

Instead  of  enumerating  the  many  pictures  that  we 
have  from  his  hand  (a  task  in  the  main  already  ac- 
comphshed  by  Bredius),  I  shall  merely  try  to  give, 
by  means  of  a  few  diverse  examples,  a  general  idea  of 
his  art. 

In  America  he  has  found  a  good  friend,  for  Mr. 
Johnson  owns  seven  excellent  specimens  of  his  work, 
some  of  them  almost  unique  of  their  kind.  One  of 
the  most  unusual  is  the  remarkable  picture  of  a  Hen 
Alarmed  by  a  Cat,  where,  sitting  on  her  nest  in  a 
stable  with  a  couple  of  chicks  near  by,  the  white  hen 
looks  around,  apprehensive  and  angry,  at  the  insolent 
intruder  inquisitively  thrusting  his  head  through  an 
opening  in  the  wall.  Here  Camphuysen's  individual 
point  of  view  clearly  appears  if  we  compare  him  with 
such  painters  as  Hondecoeter  and  Albert  Cuyp,  the 
first  that  occur  to  mind  in  connection  with  pictures  of 
poultry.  He  chooses  a  more  dramatic  moment  than 
Cuyp  whose  chickens  flock  together  undisturbed  by 
enemies,  and  concentrates  more  than  Hondecoeter 
whose  multitudinous  fowls  are  usually  flying  wildly 
about,  frightened  by  a  descending  bird  of  prey.  The 
colouring  also  is  different,  less  golden  than  with  Cuyp, 
less  diversified  than  with  Hondecoeter.  The  white  of 
the  hen  and  the  chicks,  the  light  coming  in  at  the  win- 
dow, and  the  reflections  on  the  shining  utensils  stand 
out  in  strong  relief  from  the  prevailing  warm  brown 
tone.  The  broad  and  vigorous  touch,  as  well  as  the 
incidence  of  the  light,  reminds  us  of  Rembrandt,  from 
whose  influence  in  the  middle  years  of  the  century  no 
one  at  Amsterdam  could  escape.  But  all  his  own,  I 
may   repeat,   is   the   remarkable   dramatic   quality   of 

[103] 


THE    ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

Camphuysen's  picture,  where  not  only  the  predatory 
spirit  of  the  cat,  but  also  his  predatory  attitude,  is  sug- 
gested by  the  portrayal  of  the  head  alone,  and  the 
alarm  of  the  experienced  hen  is  delightfully  contrasted 
with  the  simple  curiosity  of  the  inexperienced  chick. 

The  finest  of  Camphuysen's  interiors  are  perhaps  in 
the  museum  at  Brussels  and  the  Carstanjen  Collection 
at  Munich,  but  I  prefer  to  cite,  as  showing  more  fully 
his  characteristic  tendencies,  the  one  in  the  Museum 
at  Copenhagen,  a  domestic  scene  in  a  peasant's  cottage 
where  a  single  great  barn-like  room  serves  as  living- 
room,  kitchen,  and  stable.  In  the  foreground  sits  a 
woman  near  a  cradle  which  she  is  rocking  by  means  of 
a  cord.  Not  far  away  the  fire  is  burning  in  the  chim- 
ney-place and  a  cat  is  warming  herself.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  picture  the  father  is  throwing  fodder  to  the 
two  cows  that  stand  in  the  stall.  Sunlight,  streaming 
in  at  the  open  door,  illumines  the  scene  and  especially 
the  still-life  features  of  the  foreground. 

There  is  good  reason  why  this  picture  should  resemble 
in  its  composition  the  work  of  more  than  one  of  the 
ablest  painters  of  the  time,  for  the  artists  of  Holland 
were  so  closely  associated  in  cities  separated  by  such 
short  distances  that,  especially  in  this  most  prolific 
period,  the  ties  between  them  were  astonishingly  close. 
The  intimate  expression  of  domesticity  in  Camphuy- 
sen's scene  reminds  us  of  Pieter  de  Hooch,  the  rendering 
of  the  lofty  barn  with  its  brown  shadows  and  the  care- 
ful drawing  of  its  framework  suggest  the  two  Ostades, 
and  the  still-life  of  the  foreground,  which  consists  of  a 
copper  kettle,  an  old  Delft  dish,  a  jug  of  the  stoneware 
of  Cologne,  and  a  pendant  beef's  liver  very  brightly 

[104] 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

coloured,  recalls  the  treatment  of  such  things  in  the 
best  early  pictures  of  van  der  Poel  or  in  those  master- 
pieces in  the  grand  style  of  Dutch  genre-painting,  the 
small  interiors  of  Willem  Kalf.  The  individuality  of 
Camphuysen  lies  in  the  blending  of  these  diverse  ele- 
ments into  an  integral  whole  presenting  a  fresh  version 
of  the  most  modest  kind  of  plebeian  existence  —  a  ver- 
sion which  lacks,  indeed,  the  delicate  poetry  of  Pieter  de 
Hooch  but,  on  the  other  hand,  has  none  of  the  coarse- 
ness of  most  of  the  Dutch  painters  of  peasant  life. 

Nowhere  has  the  art  of  genre-painting  been  better 
understood  than  in  Holland,  where  a  leisurely  episodi- 
cal method  of  exposition  suited  the  sedate  temperament 
of  the  artist.  Avoiding  the  attempt  to  force  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  observer  into  sympathy  with  a  lively 
episode,  he  gives  his  theme  only  such  an  amount  of 
interest  as  may  lead  the  eye  hither  and  thither  into 
the  various  corners  of  the  picture  and  thus  apprise  it 
of  the  full  beauty  of  the  artistic  interpretation.  What 
remains  in  our  memory  of  the  actual  incidents  in  the 
pictures  of  Ostade,  of  Metsu,  of  Ter  Borch.^  Nothing; 
nothing  more  than  a  recollection  of  delightful  afternoon 
moods,  of  gay  costumes,  of  charming  gestures.  Camp- 
hu3^sen  also  was  a  master  in  the  art  of  choosing  the 
right  theme  to  serve  as  a  starting-point  for  a  fine  atmos- 
pheric rendering  of  nature.  A  good  example  is  a  pic- 
ture as  plentifully  enlivened  with  figures  as  the  Halt  at 
the  Tavern  in  the  Johnson  Collection. 

A  heavy  farm-wagon  carrying  a  merry  company  has 
stopped  before  a  cottage  that  nestles  cozily  under  the 
trees.  Two  couples  in  the  wagon  have  already  provided 
themselves  with  wdne,  while  the  man  of  the  third  pair, 

[105] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

helped  by  the  girl,  is  climbing  back  into  his  place. 
The  fiddler  on  the  driver's  seat  is  playing  his  little  tune, 
and  the  driver  is  feeding  the  horses.  While  the  host 
disappears  into  the  house  with  the  wine-can,  the  host- 
ess busies  herself  with  a  new  arrival,  a  well-dressed 
gallant  on  horseback  to  whom  she  is  handing  up  a 
glass  of  beer.  It  is  a  harmless  episode  without  dra- 
matic point,  invented  simply  to  give  interest  to  the 
interpretation  of  an  open-air  summer  mood.  There- 
fore the  painter  has  spent  less  time  and  pains  in  char- 
acterizing the  thick-skulled  peasants,  awkward  of  gesture 
and  good-humoured  of  face,  than  in  rendering  the  golden 
rays  that  fall  through  the  dark  green  foliage,  the  bright 
red  and  yellow  costumes  vividly  relieved  against  the 
warm  brown  shadows  around  the  cottage,  and  the  soft 
tones  of  the  evening  sky. 

While  this  picture  shows  Camphuysen  as  a  rival  of 
painters  like  Isack  Ostade  and  Cuyp,  with  whom  the 
Halt  at  the  Tavern  was  a  favourite  subject,  a  simpler 
composition  of  a  wholly  different  kind  —  the  Pool  in 
the  Forest,  now  in  the  Hermitage  at  St.  Petersburg  — 
points  in  another  direction.  A  luxuriant  oak  wood 
surrounds  a  quiet  pond  on  the  borders  of  which  two 
cows  are  grazing.  In  the  shadow  of  a  mighty  oak 
that  mirrors  its  trunk  in  the  water  two  men  are  draw- 
ing in  their  nets,  while  on  the  other  side  of  the  picture 
an  aristocratic  sportsman  on  horseback  examines,  as 
a  page  holds  it  up  to  him,  a  hare  that  he  has  shot. 
The  portrayal  of  a  forest  pool  recalls  the  most  beautiful 
works  of  Jacob  Ruisdael,  dating  from  the  seventh 
decade  of  the  century;  the  incident  of  the  horseman 
conversing  with  a  person  on  foot  often  occurs  in  the 

[106] 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

pictures  of  Adriaen  van  der  Velde;  the  cows  and  the 
treatment  of  the  background  of  forest  also  suggest  this 
painter,  and  the  technique  is  most  nearly  related  to 
Potter's.  But,  once  more,  everything  is  adapted,  is 
independently  worked  over.  The  passage  of  bright 
light  where  the  rider  sits  on  the  white  horse  is  delight- 
fully contrasted  with  the  mysterious  darkness  around 
the  pool,  and  very  far  from  commonplace  are  the  sil- 
very tone  of  the  landscape  and  the  delicate  combina- 
tion of  the  purple  dresses  with  the  bluish  green  of  the 
trees  and  the  gray  of  the  sky. 

Finally,  we  have  still  another  side  of  Camphuysen's  art 
in  The  Farm  near  the  Village,  perhaps  his  most  beautiful 
picture,  which  Mr.  Johnson  owns.  It  is  one  of  the  few 
Dutch  pictures  of  farmstead  or  pasture  where  human  fig- 
ures are  almost  dispensed  with  in  order  that  the  great 
unvarying  features  of  nature  may  be  emphasized  —  a 
conception  peculiarly  in  accord  with  our  modern  pref- 
erences. Nor  would  it  be  easy  to  find  a  composition 
embracing  in  a  more  typical  way  the  pictorial  motives  of 
Dutch  landscape.  Here  is  the  large,  almost  square 
cottage  of  the  province  of  North  Holland  with  the 
hipped  roof  thatched  with  straw  which  covers  a  single 
lofty  room  such  as  we  saw  in  Camphuysen's  cottage 
interior.  In  the  foreground  we  have  the  placid  canal 
with  its  clear  reflections  and  narrow  bridge  of  planks. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  house,  beyond  the  elms,  runs 
the  raised  highroad  back  of  which  the  sailboats  emerge 
as  though  floating  over  the  meadows.  Still  farther 
away  stand  the  low  gabled  houses  of  the  village  and, 
raised  on  its  high  substructure,  the  windmill,  sign  and 
symbol  of  the  land  of  Holland.     All  this  is  subordinated 

[107] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

to  the  meadow  in  the  foreground  where  the  hght-brown 
spotted  cows  look  as  though  they  grew  organically  from 
the  brownish-green  grass.  And  over  this  simple  homely 
bit  of  nature  spreads  the  vaporous  silver-clouded  sky, 
wrapping  the  narrow  strip  of  land  in  a  luminous  veil 
of  air. 

The  small  weaknesses  of  excellent  painters  are  usually 
more  evident  than  the  greater  faults  of  those  whose 
mediocre  gifts  enable  them  to  treat  all  things  with  equal 
skill  but  without  artistic  charm.  So  we  see  at  once 
that  Camphuysen  is  in  some  respects  inferior  to  painters 
like  Berchem  and  Lingelbach.  He  is  ponderous,  slow 
to  apprehend,  and  weak  in  imagination.  He  is  unwill- 
ing to  attempt  more  than  a  direct  transcript  from  nature, 
and  is  often  unskilful  when  driven  to  compose.  Again 
and  again  he  takes  counsel  of  other  artists,  and  he 
never  ceases  to  search  and  to  experiment.  The  figures 
of  men  and  animals  in  his  landscapes  often  seem  me- 
chanically posed  and  are  weak  in  drawing,  particularly 
when  foreshortened.  At  all  these  points  he  was  out- 
distanced by  the  accomplished  Italianizing  painters 
who,  possessed  of  a  clever  facility  in  design  and  execu- 
tion and  a  sureness  in  drawing  that  seldom  went  wrong, 
soon  turned  their  backs  on  nature  and  worked  out  some 
sort  of  a  scheme  which  they  used  with  perfect  mastery, 
and  to  which  they  clung  as  long  as  they  lived. 

Nevertheless  a  painter  like  Camphuysen  seems  to  us 
more  important  and  more  interesting,  for  anything  in 
process  of  growth,  anything  that  reveals  an  inner  strug- 
gle, appeals  to  us  more  strongly  than  the  finished,  easily 
accomplished  result  behind  which  nothing  lies  concealed. 
Camphuysen's  pictures  seem  more  real  than  those  of 

[108] 


GOVERT    CAMPHUYSEN,    THE    FARM    NEAR    THE    VILLAGE 

COLLECTION  OF  MR.  J.  G.  JOHNSOX,  PHILADELPHIA 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

the  painters  just  named  because  in  every  detail  he  had 
to  recur  to  nature,  because  we  Hve  over  again  with 
him  the  effort  of  production.  As  he  is  not  deceived 
in  regard  to  his  deficiencies,  he  always  begins  to  work 
afresh  in  directions  where  he  has  not  yet  ventured, 
hoping  that  here  he  may  achieve  perfection.  Therefore 
his  work  is  richer  in  varied  themes  and  problems  than 
is  that  of  the  clever  craftsmen  who  constantly  turn  in  a 
circle,  repeating  themselves  over  and  over  again.  From 
the  sincerity  of  his  character  springs  also  the  faithful 
loving  manner  in  which  he  portrays  his  native  soil,  the 
warm  sympathy  with  which  he  pictures  the  humble  life 
of  the  cottage  or  the  pasture.  Only  a  genuine  attachment 
to  his  surroundings  made  possible  such  an  harmonious 
characterization  of  the  farmstead,  such  a  good-natured 
commentary  upon  its  inhabitants,  such  an  appealing 
study  of  all  its  paintable  corners.  And  only  from  a 
genuine  artistic  endowment  could  an  art  develop  which 
persuades  one  to  forget  the  theme  as  such  in  the  ad- 
mirable rendering  of  its  aspect,  the  incident  in  the  mood 

that  it  evokes. 

* 

In  the  Johnson  Collection  there  is  a  cattle-piece 
which  has  often  been  remarked  for  individuality  in 
composition,  simplicity  of  handling,  and  an  admirable 
rendering  of  evening  light.  A  number  of  cows  standing 
stiffly  about  in  various  positions  almost  fill  the  canvas 
up  to  the  front;  a  castle  with  a  tower  and  a  garden  wall 
form  the  background.  More  than  one  painter  has  been 
suggested  in  connection  with  this  remarkable  picture, 
which  bears  no  signature :  Hendrik  Ten  Oever  whom  we 
know  in  several  effective  landscapes  where,  however,  the 

[109] 


THE   ART   OF   THE  LOW   COUNTRIES 

figures  are  placed  farther  away  in  a  silhouette-like  fash- 
ion; Gerit  Berckheyde  who  generally  painted,  although 
in  a  more  conventional  arrangement,  cows  at  pasture 
by  a  city  wall  in  an  afternoon  light;  and  finally  Govert 
Camphuysen.  As  this  last  name  seemed  the  most 
plausible,  I  attached  it,  tentatively,  to  the  description 
of  the  picture  in  my  catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Collec- 
tion, despite  the  fact  that  the  owner  was  never  quite 
convinced  of  the  correctness  of  the  attribution.  Al- 
most the  first  picture  I  saw  offered  for  sale  in  Paris 
in  1913  appeared,  even  at  a  glance,  to  be  a  second  ex- 
ample of  this  unknown  artist.  It  was  then  in  a  dealer's 
hands  and  has  since  passed  into  the  collection  of  Mr. 
John  D.  Mcllhenny  in  Philadelphia.  Unsigned,  it 
gave  no  help  in  regard  to  the  painter's  name.  But 
soon  afterward,  by  a  happy  chance,  I  visited  the  Semeo- 
now  Collection  at  St.  Petersburg  in  company  with  the 
owner  of  the  first-named  picture.  Here  we  discovered 
a  third  painting  from  the  same  hand,  and  here  at  last 
was  the  wished-for  signature.  The  name  was  Camp- 
huysen, and  although  the  Christian  name  was  not 
Govert  but  was  concealed  in  a  monogram  hard  to 
decipher,  nevertheless  the  attribution  in  the  Johnson 
catalogue  was  not  far  wrong,  for  the  painter  was  a 
relative  of  Govert's  who  stood  close  to  him  in  his  art. 

Neither  of  the  Camphuysens  of  the  elder  generation, 
neither  Rafel  nor  Jochem,  could  be  thought  of,  for  the 
style  showed  that  the  picture  could  not  have  been 
painted  in  their  lifetime.  Otherwise  no  painter  of  the 
name  had  been  mentioned  at  any  length  excepting  a 
younger  Govert  or  Godefridus,  a  nephew  of  the  well- 
known  Govert,  who  was  born  in  1658,  married  in  1678, 

[110] 


GOVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAMPHUYSEN 

and  as  early  as  1686,  it  seems,  exchanged  his  occupation 
for  that  of  a  wine-dealer;  and  he,  again,  cannot  have 
painted  our  pictures.  In  the  first  place  he  lived  later 
than  the  time  to  which  we  must  assign  them,  none  of 
a  similar  kind  having  been  produced  in  Holland  after 
1680;  and  in  the  second  place  his  name  does  not  corre- 
spond with  the  monogram.  It  may  be  added  that  the 
solitary  picture  of  this  Godefridus  that  is  known,  a 
Nativity  in  the  manner  of  Cornelius  Saftleven,  seems 
to  be  but  a  bungling  piece  of  work. 

Only  one  other  Camphuysen  —  Raphel  Dircksz,  an 
elder  brother  of  the  well-known  Govert  —  is  anywhere 
mentioned  as  a  painter,  and  he  is  thus  referred  to  but 
once,  quite  incidently,  and  in  words  that  have  not  even 
been  preserved  in  an  original  document  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  But  although  we  have  these  words 
only  in  an  eighteenth-century  transcript  of  an  entry 
in  the  archives  of  the  city  of  Leeu warden,  they  are  more 
trustworthy,  perhaps,  than  has  hitherto  been  thought: 
Raphael  Kamphuysen.  Volgens  begravenis  Brief  je  Op't 
Icathuysens  Kerkhqf  1691  den  6  Juni,  geweest  schilder. 
(Raphael  Kamphuysen.  According  to  the  bill  for  the 
burial  in  the  Carthusian  Churchyard,  1691,  June  6,  was 
a  painter.) 

The  artist  who,  as  we  are  thus  informed,  lived  until 
1691,  was  born  in  1619.  He  and  his  younger  brother 
Govert  were  the  sons  of  Dirck  Raphaelsz  Camphuysen, 
renowned  in  his  time  as  a  poet.  As  the  second  Raphel 
was  called  for  his  father,  his  full  name  was  Raphel 
Dircksz  Camphuysen,  while  the  full  name  of  his  brother, 
in  which  also  the  father's  name  was  incorporated,  was 
Govert  Dircksz  Camphuysen.       It  can  no  longer  be 

[HI] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

doubted  that  the  painter  we  are  seeking  was  this  Raphel 
Dircksz,  for  the  monogram  on  the  St.  Petersburg  pic- 
ture consists  of  an  R  and  a  D. 

Although  Raphel  was  older  than  Govert,  his  style 
seems  more  like  Govert's  carried  farther  than  like 
an  earlier  manner.  He  must  have  painted  the  three 
pictures  that  are  known  to  us  at  the  end  of  the  sixth 
or  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  decade  of  the  century, 
for  from  this  period  date  all  the  works  by  other  masters 
which  are  composed  in  a  similar  way  —  deliberately, 
with  calculated  intention.  But  even  though  this  kind 
of  composition  represents  a  step  beyond  Govert's 
naively  realistic  style,  none  the  less  Govert  may  have 
been  influenced  by  his  brother,  particularly  in  his  later 
years.  In  the  works  he  then  produced  —  in  the  Halt 
at  the  Tavern,  in  the  great  picture  at  St.  Petersburg, 
the  one  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  and  others  besides  — 
we  constantly  find  horses  or  cows  so  placed  that  they 
are  seen,  foreshortened,  in  a  direct  front  or  back  view. 
Raphel  also  had  a  predilection  for  this  unusual  kind  of 
foreshortening,  and  it  was  from  him,  most  probably, 
that  Govert  learned  it.  This  we  feel  because  in  Go- 
vert's pictures  the  positions  often  seem  forced  and 
motiveless,  and  are  so  faultily  depicted  that  they  but 
half  perform  their  intended  service  in  indicating  grada- 
tions of  space,  in  developing  the  depth  of  the  scene, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  Raphel's  pictures  prove  him 
a  master  in  drawing  and  in  treating  the  problems  of 
space  —  one  whose  every  form  and  line  has  a  definite 
constructional  meaning  and  assists  the  effect  of  the 
composition  as  a  whole. 

In  Raphel's  picture  in  the  Mcllhenny  Collection  the 

[112] 


RAPHEL    DIRKSZ    CAMPHUYSEN,    CATTLE 
COLLECTION'    OF   MR.    JOHN'    D.    MC ILHENNY,    PHILADELPHIA 


G OVERT  AND  RAPHEL  CAIMPHUYSEN 

development  of  the  different  zones  from  the  foreground 
to  the  background  begins  at  the  left-hand  corner  where 
the  foreshortened  horse  leads  the  eye  directly  to  the 
middle  distance.     A  second  line  runs  toward  the  right, 
over  the  three  cows  that  are  turned  in  this  direction,  to 
the  boy  sitting  by  the  ditch  whose  staff  forms  the  con- 
necting link.      The  intentional  character  of  these  lines 
is  proved  by  the  close  alliance  of  the  successive  curves 
formed  by  the  backs  of  the  recumbent  beasts.     A  third 
gradation  of  space  is  defined  by  the  line  that  leads  from 
the  white  cow  lying  at  the  left  of  the  picture  to  the  steer 
seen  in  profile  in  the  middle  distance,  and  then  to  the 
cows  of  diminishing  sizes  in  the  farther  distance  near  the 
wall  of  the  church.     These  lines,  without  any  acces- 
sory details  to  help  them,  develop  the  receding  zones 
in  regular  succession  at  equal  intervals.     In  addition, 
main  horizontal  and  vertical  axes  also  appear  in  the 
composition.     The  vertical  ones  are  formed  at  deter- 
mined intervals  by  the  horse,  the  church  tower,  the 
standing  cowherd,  and  the  singular  tower  at  the  right, 
and  the  horizontals  by  the  shadow  of  the  ditch  and  the 
long  outline  of  the  body  of  the  church  and  the  adjoining 
wall,  while  both  verticals  and  horizontals  are  echoed  in 
brief  by  the  rectangular  profile  of  the  steer  in  the  centre 
of  the  canvas.     These  straight  lines  give  the  picture  a 
solemn  reposefulness  that  well  befits  the  evening  hour. 
The  void  passages,  notably  in  the  architecture  where 
hardly  anything  speaks  except  factors  of  height  and 
breadth,  produce  an  impression  of  great  spaciousness, 
of  monumental  design,  which  is  even  more  striking  when 
the  picture  is  viewed  from  a  distance. 

The  artist,  it  should  be  noted,  employs  his  architect- 

[113] 


THE   ART    OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

ural  features  to  establish  the  dominant  hnes  on  his 
canvas  and  then  impresses  an  architectural  stamp  upon 
the  other  elements,  the  figures  of  the  men  and  the  ani- 
mals. This  accord  between  architectural  forms  and 
animate  figures  appears  again  in  the  smaller  picture  in 
the  Johnson  Collection.  Here  also  the  animals  are  so 
placed  that  they  develop  the  successive  zones  of  space 
toward  the  background,  which  again  is  formed  by  a 
church  and  a  wall,  but  the  studied  character  of  the 
design  is  less  evident  because  it  is  masked  by  a  greater 
profusion  of  detail. 

The  third  picture,  the  one  owned  in  Russia,  has  no 
architectural  elements.  The  development  of  the  steps 
that  give  its  depth  to  the  scene  is  effected  wholly  by 
means  of  a  number  of  animals  and  a  herdboy.  Prob- 
ably the  latest  in  date  of  the  three,  it  is  the  simplest 
in  composition  and  the  most  colourful,  the  black  of  the 
cows,  the  red  of  the  boy's  costume,  and  the  orange  tone 
of  the  sky  forming  a  brilliant  colour  scheme. 

Raphel  Camphuysen  is  one  of  the  few  Dutch  artists 
who  subordinated  details  for  the  sake  of  well-defined 
lucid  composition.  Accomplished  in  drawing  and  in 
the  rendering  of  space,  he  had  no  reason  to  be  afraid  to 
show  his  constructional  lines  and  forms  unadorned  and 
unconcealed  by  a  profusion  of  minor  facts.  In  the 
simplifying  of  his  figures  and  the  rounding-off  of  their 
contours  he  goes  as  far  as  Vermeer  and  Pieter  de  Hooch, 
whose  works,  it  must  be  confessed,  have  a  greater 
charm  than  his  by  reason  of  their  more  attractive 
themes.  As  in  Vermeer's  compositions  so  also  in 
Raphel's,  the  foreground  objects  sometimes  project 
beyond  the  first  plane  in  order  that  they  may  the  more 

[114] 


RAPHEL    DIRKSZ    CAMPHUYSEN,    CATTLE    NEAR    A    CASTLE 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


G OVERT   AND    RAPHEL   CAMPHUYSEN 

quickly  lead  the  eye  of  the  observer  into  the  picture. 
The  lighting  recalls  Pieter  de  Hooch,  and  so  does  the 
construction  of  the  rectangularly  shaped  figures  such 
as  we  see  in  the  group  in  Mr.  Johnson's  example.  And 
Raphel  shares  with  both  these  artists  the  desire  to 
accentuate  horizontal  and  vertical  lines  and  to  gather 
the  elements  of  the  design  into  rectangles.  In  another 
place  I  have  tried  to  show  how  this  method  of  com- 
position recurs  again  and  again  in  important  paintings 
of  every  period  of  Dutch  art,  how  it  seems  to  be  a  funda- 
mental principle  which  may  be  explained,  perhaps,  by  the 
rectangular  ordering  of  the  actual  landscape  of  Holland. 
More  consciously  than  before,  Dutch  painters  employed 
it  in  the  time  of  the  most  perfect  flowering  of  their  art, 
shortly  before  its  decHne  began  —  roughly  speaking, 
between  1655  and  1675.  Heir  to  the  rich  artistic  devel- 
opments of  two  generations,  in  full  possession  of  the 
power  to  imitate  nature,  the  artist  then  began  to  strive 
more  consciously  for  the  embodiment  of  aesthetic  ideas. 
Especially  at  Amsterdam,  the  centre  of  artistic  ac- 
tivity, a  style  was  developed  which,  if  the  word  had 
not  acquired  a  displeasing  significance,  might  be  called 
academic.  Assuming  a  high  degree  of  understanding  in 
its  public,  the  art  of  painting  endeavoured  for  its  own 
sake  to  pay  more  attention  to  problems  of  form,  of  de- 
sign. Undoubtedly  there  was  a  connection  between 
this  tendency  and  the  tendency  of  the  architecture  of  the 
period,  as  represented  by  the  work  of  Jacob  van  Campen 
and  Pieter  Post,  to  strive  for  a  classic  simplicity,  to 
return  to  the  geometrical  in  fundamental  forms.  In 
painting,  the  leaders  of  the  movement  were  Rem- 
brandt, after  the  year  1655,  and  such  masters  as  Pieter 

[115] 


THE   ART    OF   THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

de  Hooch  and  Ter  Borch.  And  from  this  point  of  view 
the  art  of  Raphel  Dircksz  Camphuysen  assumes  addi- 
tional importance,  for  he  was  the  only  representative 
of  the  geometrical  style  in  the  domain  of  the  landscape 
with  animals. 


[116] 


VI 
DUTCH   CERAMIC   TILES 

UTCH  tile-painting  was  at  its  best  during  the 
great  period  of  Dutch  art,  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. As  the  Hollanders  were  then  the  leaders 
of  all  Europe  in  the  paths  of  world-wide  traffic,  it  may 
easily  be  believed  that  their  tiles,  like  all  the  other  prod- 
ucts of  their  applied  arts,  found  a  market  in  many  lands. 
They  were  exported  to  the  German  coasts  of  the  North 
Sea  and  the  Baltic  and  as  far  to  the  north  as  Denmark, 
and  in  the  other  direction  as  far  as  Spain  and  Morocco. 
Even  in  the  East  Indies,  in  the  old  houses  of  Java,  as 
well  as  in  certain  parts  of  America,  they  must  still 
exist  in  numbers.  But  they  found  their  natural  place 
in  Holland  itself,  in  the  land  of  frequent  downpours 
where  the  walls  of  the  houses  can  scarcely  dry  out, 
where  earth  and  sky  are  for  the  most  part  attuned  to 
neutral  harmonies  of  colour,  and  the  inhabitants  long 
for  whatever  is  bright  and  gay,  white  and  shining. 

Style  in  the  products  of  the  applied  arts  has  usually 
a  utilitarian  as  well  as  an  aesthetic  basis.  We  may 
say,  for  example,  that  the  Dutch  love  brass  utensils 
and  take  pains  to  keep  them  bright  because  as  their 

[117] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

paintings  convincingly  prove,  they  take  pleasure  in 
golden  lustres  and  the  shimmer  of  reflected  light;  but 
we  may  also  say  that  they  polish  so  assiduously  be- 
cause they  must,  because  a  day  suflSces  to  dim  the 
brilliancy  of  door  and  window  fastenings.  And  so  it 
may  be  said  of  their  tiles  that  while  they  served  the 
practical  purpose  of  protecting  the  walls  against  damp- 
ness they  also  harmonized  admirably  with  the  white 
walls  and  with  the  floors  which  in  fine  houses  were 
of  white  marble,  in  peasants'  cottages  of  wood  sprinkled 
with  white  sand. 

When  the  best  tiles  were  produced,  during  the  first 
sixty  or  seventy  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  they 
were  used  but  sparingly  in  the  decoration  of  rooms. 
They  were  set  in  a  row  along  the  foot  of  the  wall  where 
they  served  a  practical  end  as  baseboards.  Sometimes 
in  subordinate  places,  in  the  bedroom,  the  corridor, 
or  the  kitchen,  they  covered  small  expanses  of  wall 
breast-high.  And  they  were  also  used  in  and  around 
the  fireplace  where  two  or  three  rows  of  them  were  set 
vertically  on  the  two  projecting  wall-spaces,  and  often 
across  the  space  above  the  fireback.  Here  again  they 
were  very  useful  as  they  could  easily  be  washed  free  of 
soot  and  from  their  glazed  surface  radiated  more  heat 
than  other  substances. 

The  Dutch  living-room  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  so  very  simple,  so  white  and  almost  bare  in  effect, 
that  the  tiles  with  their  pleasing  hues  applied  on  a 
white  ground  introduced  a  welcome  note  of  colour. 
As  decorations  they  had  the  same  value,  perhaps,  as 
one  of  the  few  pictures  that  constituted  the  adornment 
of  the  walls.     And  it  was  because  they  were  of  so 

[118] 


DUTCH    CERAMIC    TILES 

much  importance  in  the  room  and  were  not  used  in 
quantities  that  in  the  seventeenth  century  they  were 
artistically  fashioned.  When  in  the  eighteenth  century 
the  custom  arose  of  lining  certain  rooms,  such  as  kitch- 
ens, from  floor  to  ceiling  with  tiles,  the  value  of  the 
individual  tile  was  less  considered. 

The  production  of  ceramic  tiles  must  always  remain 
a  handicraft.  We  cannot  demand  of  it  the  highest 
artistic  results,  and  still  less  can  we  expect  to  find  great 
masters  among  the  designers  of  patterns.  In  general, 
artists  made  designs  that  were  mechanically  copied  by 
artisans.  But  the  repertory  of  such  patterns  was  as- 
tonishingly large  in  the  period  when  natural  objects, 
figures  and  plant  motives,  were  reproduced.  Among 
forty  or  fifty  tiles  there  may  not  be  two  alike.  Nor 
at  this  time,  it  is  certain,  was  the  actual  execution 
wholly  in  the  hands  of  artisans.  It  is  easy,  upon  exami- 
nation, to  decide  whether  the  brush  of  an  artist  laid 
the  strokes  with  sureness  and  intelligence  or  whether 
the  stiff  hand  of  an  artisan  copied  a  pattern  in  a  slow 
painstaking  fashion.  In  fact,  the  records  tell  that  cer- 
tain painters  in  oil  —  for  example,  Frydom  and  Abra- 
ham de  Kooge  —  were  also  tile-painters.  And  at  Delft, 
the  centre  of  the  faience  industry,  painting  and  ceramic 
art  undoubtedly  exerted  a  reciprocal  influence.  It  suf- 
fices to  remember  the  chief  painters  of  Delft,  Jan 
Vermeer  and  Carel  Fabritius,  who,  whether  they  were 
actually  or  only  indirectly  Rembrandt's  pupils,  stand 
in  their  choice  of  colours,  in  their  preference  for  white 
and  blue  and  a  light  yellow,  at  the  opposite  pole  from 
Rembrandt  with  his  golden-brown  colour  scheme.  Their 
favourite  colours  are  precisely  those  of  the  Delft  faience- 

[119  1 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

painter.  And  their  manner  of  setting  their  figures 
against  a  Kght-coloured  wall  and  letting  the  white 
background  dominate  the  colour  scheme  is  the  exact  re- 
verse of  Rembrandt's  way  of  letting  the  heads  show  light 
against  a  dark  ground,  but  recalls  the  contemporary 
ceramic  style.  It  can  hardly  be  by  chance  that  the 
picture  of  Carel  Fabritius,  in  the  museum  at  the 
Hague,  of  a  goldfinch  in  front  of  a  white  wall  was 
painted  at  Delft.  It  stands  quite  by  itself  in  Dutch 
pictorial  art,  but  similar  motives  are  common  on  indi- 
vidual tiles,  and  in  the  eighteenth  century  a  single  bird 
sitting  on  a  branch  or  in  a  cage  with  a  white  wall  behind 
it  was  one  of  the  most  popular  designs  for  the  tile- 
pictures  that  were  then  composed  with  a  number  of 
parts.  Again,  with  Vermeer  of  Delft  not  only  the 
choice  of  colours  but  also  the  handling  with  its  glassy 
polished  effect  and  beady  fat  touches  is  so  like  the  treat- 
ment of  faience  surfaces  as  to  make  it  probable  that 
the  painter  of  pictures  busied  himself  also  with  this 
branch  of  the  applied  arts.* 

It  is  not  likely  that  actual  patterns  for  tiles  with  fig- 
ure subjects  will  often  be  discovered.  Prints  by  Jacob 
de  Gheyn  the  Elder  were  used,  indeed,  for  a  series  of 
soldiers  in  armour,  not  very  well  done  and  now  rarely 
found.  But  in  most  cases  the  designs  were  made  es- 
pecially for  the  tiles;  otherwise  they  would  not  so  well 
have  served  their  purpose  as  decorations.  The  de- 
signers  were   artists   like   Antonis   Palamedeo,   Pieter 

*As  early  as  the  year  1866  Burger-Thore  called  attention  in  the  Gazette  des  beaux 
arts  to  this  probability  and  cited  certain  tiles,  in  .'collections  now  dispersed,  as 
possibly  painted  by  Vermeer.  But  his  statement  that  the  designs  seemed  to  repro- 
duce pictures  by  Vermeer  refutes  rather  than  supports  the  idea  that  they  were  ex- 
ecuted by  Vermeer  himself. 

[120] 


DUTCH    CERAMIC    TILES 

Codde,  Willem  Buyteweck,  and  Leonard  Bramen.  Ex- 
amples of  such  drawings  with  a  single  soldier  who 
seems  to  stand  upon  air,  as  the  only  indication  of  space 
is  a  short  line  of  shadow,  may  occasionally  be  met  with 
in  print  collections,  as  in  the  one  at  Amsterdam  and  in 
Dr.  Hofstede  de  Groot's  at  the  Hague. 

Prints  may  more  often  have  served  as  patterns  for 
the  later  Biblical  scenes.  There  are  no  well-known 
series  of  them,  but  I  once  found,  offered  for  sale,  a 
picture  Bible,  without  any  text,  in  which  the  illustrations 
were  drawn  in  outline  and  enclosed  in  borders  as  they 
are  on  tiles.  Perhaps  it  was  a  tile-painter's  pattern- 
book.  In  any  case  the  important  point  is  that  the 
patterns  were  prepared  especially  for  the  tiles  or,  if 
they  were  taken  from  other  sources,  were  so  adapted 
that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  them  as  having  been 
borrowed  from  the  art  of  the  engraver  or  the  painter. 

As  regards  the  technique  of  tile-painting,  it  is  note- 
worthy that  in  the  old  days  the  ground  was  first  covered 
by  a  white  glaze  upon  which  the  design  was  executed 
in  colour.  To-day,  on  the  contrary,  the  painting  is 
usually  done  directly  on  the  paste,  and  afterward  the 
whole  surface  is  covered  with  a  translucent  whitish 
glaze.  The  same  difference  in  the  process  marks,  of 
course,  all  old  Dutch  faience-painting  as  compared 
with  the  modern  Dutch  product.  Thus  the  old  Dutch 
potters  could  be  indifferent  to  the  colour  of  the  clay 
that  was  to  be  painted  upon,  as  it  would  be  entirely 
covered  by  the  glaze.  At  first  the  material  was  some- 
times reddish,  sometimes  yellowish,  and  not  very  clean. 
Later  it  became  a  yellowish-white  and  cleaner  but  more 
brittle. 

[  121  ] 


THE   ART   OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

Three  periods  may  be  marked  in  the  development  of 
tile-painting.  An  exact  chronological  arrangement  is 
hardly  possible,  but  it  may  be  said  in  a  general  way 
that  the  main  development  covered  the  years  between 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  first  period  running  approximately  from 
1580  to  1630,  the  second  from  1630  to  1670,  and  the 
third,  broadly  stated,  from  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth. 

The  products  of  these  three  periods  may  easily  be 
distinguished  by  the  eye.  In  the  first  the  ornamental 
character  predominates.  The  decoration  is  broad  and 
vigorous  and  fills  the  entire  space,  the  colours  are  a 
strong  yellow  and  red-brown  with  a  dark  blue  and  a 
copper-oxide  green,  the  pattern  carries  well,  and  the  tiles 
are  relatively  thick,  measuring  about  one  centimetre. 

In  the  second  period,  when  Dutch  art  was  in  its 
prime,  the  patterns  have  the  greatest  variety.  To  the 
plant  motives,  which  become  much  more  realistic  with- 
out any  loss  of  style,  there  are  added  figures  of  soldiers 
and  artisans  and  sea-monsters,  a  few  landscape  mo- 
tives, and,  above  all,  ships.  The  horror  vacui  of  the  first 
period,  when  the  whole  field  was  covered,  is  forgotten. 
A  single  motive  —  a  flower,  a  solitary  figure,  a  vessel  — 
is  set  freely  and  lightly  in  the  space  so  that  the  white 
ground  plays  an  important  part  in  the  result.  The 
colour  of  the  pattern  is  blue,  the  beautiful  Delft  blue 
that  was  never  achieved  except  in  this  period,  the  sec- 
ond half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  technique 
has  been  perfected,  the  white  is  milky  and  shiningly 
bright,  the  glaze  brilliant  yet  not  vitreous  in  effect. 
The  tile  has  lost  one  third  of  its  thickness. 

[122] 


TILES,    ITALIAN   INFLUENCE 
ABOUT  1.580-1630 


DUTCH   CERAMIC   TILES 

In  the  third  period  the  dominant  colour  is  a  manga- 
nese purple,  a  weak  mixed  tint  that  speaks  of  the  Rococo 
time.  Decorative  simplicity  has  vanished;  here,  too,  the 
influence  of  the  art  of  painting,  which  destroyed  sculp- 
ture in  Holland,  has  worked  disastrously.  There  is 
an  evident  desire  to  put  a  whole  picture  on  a  single  tile, 
to  paint  landscapes  and  scenes  with  many  figures, 
especially  pastorals  and  Bible  pictures.  Together  with 
these  there  reappears  a  decorative  ornamentation, 
spreading  over  several  rows  of  tiles  and  rich  but  restless 
and  weak  in  effect  —  a  Rococo  design  of  leafage  and 
flowers  that  in  Dutch  hands  has  become  rather  heavy 
and  ungraceful.  The  tiles  are  now  only  half  as  thick 
as  those  of  the  first  period.  Most  of  the  tile-pictures 
were  made  at  this  time. 

The  first  period,  when  there  was  an  interplay  of  vari- 
ous influences,  presents  the  greatest  number  of  histori- 
cal problems.  The  technique  was  still  primitive  and 
unskilful,  yet  the  outcome,  in  spite  of  all  dependence 
upon  foreign  styles,  is  full  of  naivete  and  strength.  No 
such  brilliant  intensity  of  colour  was  achieved  in  after 
days.  In  this  respect  these  tiles,  be  the  disparity  what 
it  may,  can  be  compared  only  with  those  of  the  Orient, 
for  Spanish  and  Itahan  tiles  are  usually  duller  and  less 
varied  in  colour,  or  else  their  small  area  is  sprinkled 
with  such  numerous  little  spots  of  colour  that  they  make 
no  coherent  colour  impression.  If  we  put  Dutch  and 
oriental  tiles  side  by  side,  the  northern  specimens, 
equally  intense  in  colour,  may  be  distinguished  by  the 
warm  and  heavy  but  very  decorative  tone  from  the  ori- 
ental, which  depend  for  their  decorative  value  upon  a 
luminous  clarity,  a  sensuous  luxuriance  of  effect. 

[  123  ] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

In  developing  from  the  greatest  colouristic  richness 
to  monochrome  this  Dutch  product  took  an  opposite 
course  from  the  majoHca  ware  of  Italy.  The  reason 
can  easily  be  read.  The  ceramic  art  of  the  Dutch  fol- 
lowed, chronologically,  that  of  the  Italians  and  was 
inspired  by  their  late  polychromatic  style.  The  sim- 
plicity of  the  colour  combinations  in  the  earlier  Italian 
majolicas  had  been  due  to  a  primitive  undeveloped  tech- 
nique and  to  a  connection  with  the  colourless  faience 
of  Spain.  The  contrary  development  at  the  north,  from 
polychromatic  to  monochromatic  design,  was  part  and 
parcel  of  the  general  character  of  the  art  of  Holland. 

In  touching  upon  the  connection  with  Italian  ma- 
johca  wares  we  come  naturally  to  the  question  of  the 
beginnings  of  tile-making  in  Holland,  which  is  identical 
with  the  question  of  the  origin  of  Dutch  faience.  A 
knowledge  of  the  tiles  themselves  contributes  largely 
to  a  solution  of  this  much-discussed  problem. 

Usually  the  beginnings  of  the  Dutch  industry  are 
placed  in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  records  of  the  city  of  Delft  mention  faience- 
painters  for  the  first  time  about  the  year  1610.  The 
earliest  specimens  that  we  have  of  their  handiwork,  im- 
itations of  Chinese  porcelains  with  designs  in  blue, 
are  attributed  by  Havard  to  dates  between  1640  and 
1650,  and  are  cited  as  the  earliest  by  Brickmann  also. 
In  style  they  correspond  with  the  second  period  in 
tile-painting.  Heer  Pit,  the  director  of  the  Netherland 
Museum  at  Amsterdam,  takes  a  long  backward  step  in 
the  matter  of  dates  because  of  certain  small  apothecary 
pots,  imitated  from  alharelli,  that  were  found  at  Mid- 
delburg  on  the  site  of  an  apothecary  shop  which  was 

[124] 


DUTCH    CERAMIC    TILES 

not  in  existence  at  a  later  date  than  1580.  These  pots 
he  beheves  to  be  the  earhest  existing  specimens  of 
Delft  faience,  made  about  1570.  It  is  a  question, 
however,  whether  they  may  not  be  Italian,  for  Wallis 
has  published  pictures  of  just  such  pots  in  his  writings 
on  the  Italian  majolicas  of  the  fifteenth  century.  In 
England  also  such  shapes  were  very  often  imitated 
during  the  eighteenth  century  in  the  factories  that 
produced  the  so-called  Lambeth  Delft,  as  is  shown  by 
specimens  at  Liverpool  and  in  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
Museum  in  London.  On  the  other  hand.  Pit  is  cer- 
tainly right  when  he  claims  a  Dutch  origin  for  two  or 
three  fragments  discovered  at  Delft  which,  according 
to  a  date  upon  one  of  them,  must  have  been  made  in 
the  second  decade  of  the  seventeenth  century.  They 
have  precisely  the  strong,  brightly  varied  colours  of  the 
oldest  tiles.  A  plate  in  perfect  preservation,  which  I 
saw  in  the  museum  at  York,  is  perhaps  a  little  older, 
and  the  fact  that  it  was  made  at  Delft  may  be  assumed 
with  some  confidence  from  its  affinity  with  Dutch 
tiles. 

But  we  must  draw  our  knowledge  of  this  early  period 
chiefly  from  the  tiles  unless  a  larger  number  of  early 
Delft  faience  pieces  are  discovered.  It  is  by  no  means 
an  unwarranted  assumption  that  tiles  were  made  in 
quantities  at  an  earlier  time  than  faience  vessels.  Cer- 
tainly they  came  sooner  into  general  use.  In  the  pictures 
of  de  Hooch,  Vermeer,  Metsu,  and  other  painters  of  the 
'sixties  and  'seventies  of  the  seventeenth  century,  where 
tiles  may  usually  be  seen  on  the  walls  of  the  rooms,  the 
furnishings  include  scarcely  a  single  Delft  vase,  although 
the  descriptions  in  the  catalogues  of  certain  picture  col- 

[125] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

lections  give  this  name  to  objects  that  are  really  Chinese 
porcelains. 

A  more  definite  account  of  the  earliest  use  of  tiles 
has  been  given  by  Heer  Muller,  the  archivist  of 
Utrecht.  He  says  that  they  took  the  place  of  the  so- 
called  "fireplace  stones  "  —  bricks  impressed  with  sunken 
patterns  —  which  bear  no  dates  later  than  those  be- 
tween 1607  and  1614,  with  occasional  exceptions  that 
are  dated  as  late  as  1621.  Thus  the  tiles  drove  out  the 
"fireplace  stones"  between,  approximately,  1610  and 
1620.  Muller  has  reference  to  those  with  figures  done 
in  blue,  and  he  is  right  in  saying  that  the  costumes 
indicate  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  At 
least  this  is  true  of  some  of  them  where  the  figures  wear 
the  dress  of  the  time  of  Hendrick  Avercamp,  Esaias 
van  der  Velde,  Aert  Aertzen,  and  their  fellows.  But 
the  figures  on  many  others  display  the  modes  of  the 
'thirties  and  'forties.  In  any  case  tiles  with  polychro- 
matic ornament  must  have  been  made  some  time 
before  the  blue-and-white  ones,  which  show  a  more 
developed  technique.  And  two  specimens,  recently 
on  sale  in  Holland,  speak  of  the  'eighties  and  'nineties 
of  the  preceding  century,  bearing  pictures  of  women, 
the  head  and  bust  only,  in  the  dress  of  the  second  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century. 

These  years  are  indicated  also  by  that  relation  to  Italy 
which  is  patent  in  all  the  Dutch  art  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Beyond  a  doubt,  technical  methods  were  ac- 
quired directly  from  Italy.  It  cannot  here  be  discussed 
whether  they  came  in  byway  of  Antwerp  where  an  Itahan 
craftsman,  Guido  da  Savino,  was  at  work,  or  by  way  of 
Spain  where  at  Seville  there  was  an  Italian  tile-factory, 

[  126  ] 


BLUE   AND    WHITE   TILES 
ABOUT  1630-1670 


DUTCH    CERAMIC    TILES 

the  products  of  which  resemble  Dutch  ceramic  wares. 
However  this  may  be,  there  is  evidence  to  prove  that  the 
earhest  Dutch  tile-painters  had  travelled  as  students  in 
Italy  and  Spain. 

On  the  oldest  tiles  the  motives  are  Italian  —  pome- 
granates, large  grapes,  and  quinces.  From  Italy  also, 
in  all  probability,  came  the  corner  ornament,  the  lily, 
from  which  the  various  corner  patterns  on  Dutch  tiles 
of  later  dates  were  developed.  And  Italian,  again,  is 
the  colouring  —  the  predominance  of  orange-yellow 
and  the  use  of  a  deep  blue  and  a  copper-oxide  green.  A 
thought  of  these  motives  and  colours  must  recall  to  mind 
the  fat-bellied  pots  made  at  Faenza  in  the  early  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  contemporary  tiles  with 
figures  of  animals  whose  shapes  Pit  derives  from  oriental 
art  have  more  resemblance  to  Italian  tiles,  probably 
also  made  at  Faenza,  specimens  of  which  may  be  seen  in 
the  British  Museum  and  in  the  Forrer  Collection  at 
Strassburg.  Spanish  influence  is  now  much  less  strong, 
persisting  only,  perhaps,  in  the  enframing  patterns  and 
in  the  occasional  occurrence  of  an  arabesque  design 
covering  the  whole  field.  This  design,  however,  may 
have  come  in  by  way  of  Italy. 

In  the  second  period  of  tile-painting  Chinese  porce- 
lain plays  a  part  similar  to  that  of  Italian  faience  in  the 
first  period,  although  not  of  the  same  dominating  impor- 
tance. It  influences  the  colour,  for  blue  now  replaces  all 
other  hues,  and  also  the  designs,  some  of  which  are 
taken  directly  from  the  Chinese.  For  instance,  Mr. 
Victor  de  Stuers  had  in  his  possession  at  the  Hague  tiles 
with  a  familiar  Chinese  design  of  birds  sitting  among 
blossoms.     Sometimes,  too,  we  find  more  formal  pat- 

[127] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

terns  with  emblems,  such  as  rolls  of  paper  from,  which 
extend  long  cords  and  flourishes,  that  are  common  in 
Chinese  work  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  early  seventeenth 
century.  And,  finally,  the  only  corner  ornament  which 
cannot  be  traced  back  to  the  lily  is  a  group  of  short  blue 
bands,  a  misunderstood  meander  pattern  of  Chinese 
origin. 

The  ornamentation  of  Dutch  tiles  suggests  a  number 
of  sesthetic  problems  that  can  merely  be  indicated  here. 
The  artist  had  to  deal  with  the  need  so  to  fill  a  small 
quadrangular  space  that  the  pattern  would  tell  as  a 
unit  within  the  limits  of  the  individual  tile  and  would 
also  lead  up  to  its  neighbours.  He  had  to  take  pains 
to  bring  similar  motives  together  when  associating  the 
tiles,  and  to  secure  in  the  different  designs  an  approxi- 
mation to  symmetry.  Above  all,  in  his  figures  and 
landscapes  he  had  to  adapt  the  subject  to  flat  decoration 
and  yet  preserve  truth  to  nature.  For  this  reason  he 
intentionally  avoided  effects  of  distance  in  his  maritime 
subjects,  portraying  the  water  without  any  indication 
of  perspective,  and  so  placing  the  vessels  that  they  sup- 
ply a  vigorous  silhouette  while  not  leading  the  eye  into 
the  distance.  Nevertheless  the  impression  of  a  freshly 
observed  bit  of  nature  is  admirably  preserved. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  nothing  individual  in 
the  way  of  tiles  was  produced  in  Holland.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  speak  of  the  attempts,  wholly  unsuccessful 
but  affectionately  fostered  by  the  people,  of  certain 
modern  Dutch  manufacturers  to  revive  the  old  art  by 
imitating  it.  The  costly  tiles  and  decorative  plates 
turned  out  by  these  firms  show  landscapes  after  Maris 
or  Apoll,  and  even  figures  of  Rembrandt's  with  ill-drawn 

[128] 


BLUE   AND    WHITE    TILES 
ABOUT  1630-1670 


POLYCHROME    TILES 

A       ABOUT    172.5  B       ABOUT    1750 


DUTCH    CERAMIC    TILES 

expressionless  faces  swimming  in  glaring  blue  tones. 
The  colours  are  as  intolerable  as  the  designs  —  the 
grayish  white  of  the  ground  and  the  hard  blue  of  the 
painting,  the  revival  of  which  has  failed  because  it  is 
not  a  colour  that  was  born  of  the  taste  of  the  faience- 
painter  of  to-day.  The  diversified  mixed  colours, 
like  pearl-gray,  pink,  and  lilac,  that  were  not  known  in 
elder  times,  are  rather  more  successful,  for  they  were 
produced  in  answer  to  an  independent  modern  desire. 
The  designs  are  absolutely  undecorative.  It  is  all 
wrong  when  faience  attempts  to  vie  with  painting  in 
oils,  which  must  give  that  illusion  of  space,  of  perspec- 
tive, that  the  earlier  painters  of  faience  so  absolutely 
renounced. 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  in  recent  years  a  few 
artists  have  been  trying  to  do  new  things  in  the  spirit 
of  the  old,  using  other  colours,  other  designs,  and  a 
newly  mastered  technique.  But  they  meet  with  little 
encouragement  because  they  have  not  the  pernicious 
cleverness  displayed  in  the  imitations  of  old  DeKt. 
The  tourist  in  Holland  still  prefers  to  load  himself  down 
with  these  worthless  wares  when,  if  he  does  not  care 
for  good  modern  art,  he  might  at  least  search  in  the 
curiosity-shop  for  one  or  two  of  the  old  tiles  which  pre- 
serve more  of  the  artistic  spirit  of  the  old  days  than  can 
be  found  in  a  whole  cargo  of  modern  Delft. 


[129] 


VII 
REMBRANDT  AT  THE  LATIN  SCHOOL 

IN  the  biographies  of  Rembrandt  only  a  few  words, 
for  the  most  part  inconclusive,  are  given  to  his 
years  at  school  and  at  the  university.  In  truth, 
it  may  not  seem  essential  to  know  upon  what  school 
benches  the  bored  young  artist  sat,  for,  possessed  by  a 
single  idea,  he  soon  managed  to  devote  himself  to  art. 
He  can  have  been  little  more  than  a  year  at  the  univer- 
sity when  he  entered  a  painter's  studio.  But  it  was  not 
only  this  brief  period  at  college  in  Leyden  that  brought 
him  into  contact  with  the  humanistic  culture  of  the  day. 
As  he  was  only  fourteen  at  the  time  of  his  matricu- 
lation, the  entry  regarding  it  has  been  thought  to 
indicate  his  admission  to  the  Latin  school.  For  in- 
stance, we  read  of  a  brief  attendance  at  "the  Latin 
school  of  the  university,"  although  there  was  in  fact  no 
connection  between  the  school  and  the  college;  or  we 
are  told  that  *'the  parents  took  the  boy  out  of  the 
Latin  school,"  although  it  is  certain  that  he  passed 
through  it  from  beginning  to  end.  This  means  that 
he  enjoyed  seven  years  or,  if  we  add  about  a  twelve- 
month at  the  university,  eight  years  of  such  instruction 

[130] 


REMBKANDT    AT    THE    LATIN   SCHOOL 

as  was  suited  to  an  embryo  man  of  letters,  for  only 
those  boys  were  sent  to  the  Latin  school  whose  abilities, 
in  their  parents'  opinion,  gave  promise  of  scholarship. 
This  explains  why  boys  entered  the  Latin  school 
earlier  than  they  do  to-day,  at  the  age  of  seven.  To 
the  humanists  the  number  seven  still  seemed  signifi- 
cant. For  seven  years,  according  to  Erasmus,  the 
future  humanist  should  play,  for  seven  he  should  attend 
school,  and  for  seven  the  university.  So  it  squares 
with  the  schedule  if  Rembrandt  graduated  from  the 
Latin  school  at  fourteen.  If,  as  seems  evident,  his 
parents  meant  to  bring  him  up  to  be  a  scholar  he  must 
have  shown  in  early  youth  distinct  intellectual  ability, 
whether  or  no  the  father  yet  recognized  the  direction 
in  which  it  pointed;  and  certainly  it  was  not  to  Rem- 
brandt's detriment  that  at  first  he  was  led  along  plainly 
prescribed  paths. 

Artists  of  genius  who  instinctively  develop  into  ex- 
ponents of  a  phase  of  civilization  need  a  certain  amount 
of  knowledge  as  a  basis  upon  which,  in  manifold  ways, 
their  powerful  imaginations  may  build.  This  does  not 
mean  that  they  must  be,  like  Rubens  or  Velasquez, 
aristocrats  with  the  means  of  culture  always  close  at 
hand.  They  may  be,  by  birth  and  breeding,  simple 
folk  like  Durer  or  Michelangelo,  provided  that  the 
new  intellectual  life  of  their  time  is  brought  conspic- 
uously to  their  notice,  even  if  only,  perhaps,  by  a 
small  circle  of  its  representatives.  Then,  dowered  with 
broad  powers  of  comprehension,  they  will  assimilate  the 
proffered  material  and  will  embody  its  essentials  in  that 
conception  of  life  which,  without  formulating  it  in  words, 
they  express  in  their  art. 

[131] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

According  to  the  general  verdict,  Rembrandt  was 
the  least  cultivated  of  all  great  artists.  It  is  true  that 
he  must  always  have  retained  a  certain  slow  simplicity 
of  nature,  but  the  course  of  his  life  tended  to  make  of  the 
miller's  son,  in  mind  and  in  manners,  an  accomplished 
man.  The  twenty  years  that  he  spent,  rich  and  fa- 
mous, in  Amsterdam  cannot  have  failed  to  affect  him, 
but  the  training  he  received  in  his  youth  must  also  have 
contributed  to  his  intellectual  development. 

In  a  history  of  the  Leyden  Latin  school  there  is 
mention  of  a  school  ordinance  which  took  effect  soon 
after  Rembrandt  graduated;  and  as  it  was  evidently 
meant  not  to  alter  but  merely  to  formulate  existing 
conditions  it  shows  what  books  the  boy  must  have 
studied  or  read.  It  also  informs  us  in  regard  to  some- 
thing more  important  —  the  spirit  that  guided  the 
teaching. 

In  the  year  1600  the  Latin  school  was  rebuilt  by  the 
municipality  for  the  furtherance  of  "piety,  the  lan- 
guages, and  the  liberal  arts,"  as  is  inscribed  above  the 
entrance  of  the  building  which  still  stands  to-day.  In 
the  year  when  Rembrandt  entered  a  wing  was  added 
for  the  rector  and  the  boarders  (among  whom  Rem- 
brandt was  certainly  not  counted),  and  the  graceful 
portal  of  this  wing,  now  in  the  Rijks  Museum  at 
Amsterdam,  was  adorned  by  a  figure  of  Pallas  Athene, 
with  the  legend,  not  quite  so  graceful,  Pallas  is  veilig 
door  haar  schild  (Pallas  is  safe  because  of  her  buckler) 
and  by  two  lions  bearing  armorial  shields.  The  school 
contained  six  rooms  for  the  six  classes  from  Sexta 
to  Prima,  only  the  last  of  which  was  divided  into  two 
—  Lower  and  Upper  Prima. 

[  132  ] 


REMBRANDT   AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

.The  name  of  the  school  shows  that  the  main  goal 
of  education  was  a  knowledge  of  Latin,  then  the  uni- 
versal language  of  the  learned.  As  far  as  possible  it 
was  to  be  used  by  the  boys  in  conversation.  In  addi- 
tion to  a  grammar  the  members  of  the  sixth  class  were 
given  at  once  a  book  containing  conversations  by 
Cordier  and  an  introduction  with  examples  for  use  in 
daily  life  prepared  by  Erasmus  of  Rotterdam.  From 
the  fifth  class  onward  two  hours  a  week  were  devoted 
to  disputations  about  scholastic  sophistries  pro  victoria 
loci  —  that  is,  "for  a  higher  place"  in  the  class.  In 
the  upper  classes  the  pupils  learned  to  extemporize  and 
to  wTite  Latin  compositions  upon  themes  chosen  by 
themselves;  and  now  they  were  obliged  to  speak  Latin 
out  of  school  as  well  as  in  school,  and  to  keep  watch 
upon  one  another  lest  they  lapse  into  their  mother 
tongue.  The  old  humanistic  idea  of  education  still 
prevailed  —  the  development  of  men  of  all-round  abil- 
ity. It  must  be  confessed  that  the  method  was  super- 
ficial. What  were  considered  the  liberal  arts  were  a 
calligraphy  rich  in  flourishes,  the  ready  writing  of  for- 
mal Latin  epistles,  and  the  composition  in  complicated 
metres  of  Latin  hymns  and  odes.  To  these  things  long 
school  hours  were  devoted  year  after  year,  and  thus 
the  men  were  trained  who,  with  an  eye  to  immortal 
renown,  wrote  letters  like  lengthy  treatises  and  pref- 
aced their  books  with  endless  poems  that  quenched 
in  the  reader  all  sense  of  the  purport  of  the  work.  As 
the  school  ordinance  said,  the  pupils  must  be  able,  as 
cultivated  men,  to  make  a  Latin  verse  in  the  turning 
of  a  hand.  A  comprehensive  acquaintance  with  Latin 
authors   seemed  an  essential  prehminary.     The  fifth 

[133] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

class  made  a  beginning  with  the  letters  of  Cicero,  whose 
wisdom,  especially  as  it  is  contained  in  his  orations, 
thenceforward  accompanied  the  boys  throughout  their 
school  hfe.  Then  followed  in  due  order  Terence, 
Ovid's  Tristia  and  Metamorphoses,  Virgil's  Eclogues, 
the  fables  of  ^sop,  Caesar's  Commentaries,  certain 
cantos  of  the  ^Eneid,  Sallust,  Livy,  Curtius,  Horace, 
and  others.  As  is  the  case  to-day,  instruction  in  Greek 
was  somewhat  subordinated  to  instruction  in  Latin, 
although  the  ordinance  pointed  out  that  the  Grecian 
tongue  was  the  foundation  of  all  wisdom  and  that  with- 
out it  Latin  itself  could  not  be  rightly  understood.  In 
the  fifth  class  the  boys  began  the  Greek  alphabet,  in 
the  fourth  class  grammar  and  the  texts.  Rembrandt 
read  Euripides,  although  neither  of  the  two  great  elder 
tragedians,  Sophocles  and  iEschylus.  Hesiod  and  Ho- 
mer are  likewise  named. 

It  was  also  thought  that  learning  should  influence 
the  man  as  such.  Good  manners  were  inculcated,  albeit, 
according  to  our  ideas,  in  a  wonderful  way:  the  pupils 
were  to  wean  themselves  from  roughness  and  rude 
behaviour  by  reciprocal  displays  of  these  traits.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  were  taught  how  they  ought  to 
behave  by  specimens  of  courtly  Latin  phrases  which 
were  free,  indeed,  from  prudery  but  flat  and  insipid  and 
seldom  fit  for  the  mouths  of  children.  For  example, 
sixth-class  boys  were  to  greet  a  young  married  woman 
with  the  words,  "God  grant  that  you  may  make  your 
husband  the  father  of  a  fine  child,"  and  to  a  person 
who  sneezed  they  were  to  exclaim,  "Good  luck,"  or 
"May  God  direct  it  for  the  best."  A  good  influence 
upon  manners  was  expected  from  the  distiches  of  Cato 

[134] 


REMBRANDT   AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

and  the  maxims  of  Solon,  and  from  the  Ethics  of 
Walaus,  a  Christianized  version  of  Aristotle's  lessons  in 
behaviour. 

This  gives  an  idea  of  the  value  set  upon  Christianity 
in  the  education  of  youth.  It  stood  upon  an  equal  foot- 
ing with  classic  antiquity.  Everything  else  was  subor- 
dinated; for  example,  Rembrandt  learned  no  modern 
language.  All  else  that  was  thought  to  pertain  to 
general  culture  was  hastily  disposed  of  in  the  first  class. 
Then  something  of  philosophy  was  taught  (logic  was 
combined  with  the  instruction  in  Latin),  and  also  the 
higher  mathematics,  geography,  and  a  little  history 
which,  from  what  we  know  of  the  time,  must  have  re- 
lated only  to  the  development  of  states  and  above  all  to 
the  constitution  of  the  Roman  state. 

The  importance  of  religion  was  announced  by  the 
inscription  over  the  entrance  to  the  Latin  school,  of 
which  the  school  ordinance  gave,  in  this  sense,  a  further 
explanation.  An  appeal  to  the  pupils  of  the  sixth 
class  in  the  preface  of  the  first  Latin  grammar  ends 
with  the  words:  "In  the  name  of  Christ,  the  guide  in 
all  studies,  farewell!"  In  Greek  the  boys  learned  to 
repeat  the  Lord's  Prayer  in  the  original  and  to  read  the 
evangelists.  School  began  and  ended  with  prayer  in 
common,  followed,  in  the  morning,  by  the  reading  of 
a  chapter  of  the  Bible.  In  the  upper  classes  the 
Psalms  of  David  were  sung  "so  that  the  boys  might 
be  accustomed  to  the  pious  tunes. "  They  were  charged 
to  attend  church  twice  on  Sunday,  in  the  morning 
and  the  afternoon,  and  had  to  repeat  in  school  what 
they  remembered  of  the  sermon.  The  Heidelberg  cate- 
chism and  in  connection  with  it  the  teaching  of  dogma 

[135] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

were  taken  up  astonishingly  early,  in  the  second  class. 
Religious  instruction  ended  in  the  first  class  with  dis- 
cussions of  heretical  opinions. 

There  is  little  to  be  said  about  Rembrandt's  univer- 
sity life,  which  followed  upon  his  course  at  the  Latin 
school,  for  we  do  not  know  how  long  it  lasted.  He  was 
enrolled  as  studiosus  litterarum  and  therefore  attended 
the  lectures  of  the  professors  of  a  preliminary  faculty, 
introductory  to  those  of  the  three  main  faculties.  As 
is  indicated  by  the  age  of  very  many  of  the  students, 
from  fourteen  to  sixteen,  the  course  did  not  differ  much 
from  school  instruction.  Rembrandt  must  have  en- 
larged his  knowledge  of  Latin  grammar  and  Latin 
authors  and  have  followed  courses  in  the  history  of 
dogma  and  of  the  Christian  Church;  and  perhaps  it  was 
at  this  time  that  he  learned  Hebrew  which,  as  inscrip- 
tions on  his  pictures  show,  he  understood  to  some  extent. 

This  training  at  school  and  university  left  lasting 
traces  in  the  artist's  attitude  of  mind.  In  his  time 
humanistic  and  Christian  scholarship  were  more  closely 
related  to  life  than  they  are  in  our  own.  At  Ley  den 
even  the  ordinary  man  listened  with  pleasure  to  the 
disputes  of  the  learned  upon  points  of  criticism,  and 
the  "small  burgher"  strove,  as  he  still  does  in  Holland, 
to  form  an  opinion  of  his  own  upon  dogmatic  questions. 
In  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  divine  Rembrandt's  intel- 
lectual attitude  from  his  pictures  and  from  the  records, 
it  may  be  said  that  Roman  antiquity  meant  more  to 
him  than  Grecian,  as  at  school  Latin  took  rank  above 
Greek.  His  knowledge  of  Latin  is  revealed  by  occasional 
inscriptions  on  his  pictures  and  portrait  etchings;  and 
that  it  pleased  him  in  later  life  to  look  into  the  books 

[136] 


REMBRANDT,    DIANA    AND    CALLISTO 

IX    THE    POSSESSION    OF    THE    AUTHOR,    NEW    YORK 


REMBRANDT   AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

he  had  known  in  his  youth  seems  probable  in  view  of 
certain  representations  of  themes  taken  in  especial  from 
Ovid,  Livy,  and  Cicero  which,  like  his  Biblical  illustra- 
tions, adhere  so  faithfully  to  the  text  that  we  can  hardly 
think  that  he  created  them  wholly  from  memory  or 
utilized  the  work  of  other  artists. 

Baldinucci  relates  that  on  the  walls  of  the  house  of  a 
merchant  who  belonged  to  the  magistracy  Rembrandt 
painted  in  oils  a  number  of  pictures  from  Ovid.  It  is 
uncertain  whether  this  statement  is  correct  or  not.  We 
can  hardly  connect  it  with  the  drawings  and  paintings 
of  scenes  from  Ovid  that  still  exist,  as  these  date  from 
various  periods  of  Rembrandt's  career.  I  may  briefly 
indicate  what  they  are,  following  approximately  the 
order  in  which  the  poems  themselves  are  arranged: 

1.  lo.  Rembrandt  has  presented  three  moments  in 
this  famihar  myth.  In  a  drawing  at  Berlin  and  in  one 
in  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum  at  London,*  Juno 
leads  the  metamorphosed  lo  to  Argus.  Two  drawings, 
owned  by  Leon  Bonnat  and  Walter  Gay  in  Paris,  show 
Mercury  lulhng  the  warder  to  sleep  with  his  flute.  A 
fifth,  in  the  collection  of  J.  C.  Robinson  at  London,  and 
a  sixth,  in  the  Albertina  at  Vienna,  represent  the  be- 
heading of  Argus. 

2.  Callisto.  In  a  picture  at  Anholt  Rembrandt 
strives  to  render  in  a  drastic  way  the  words  in  which  the 
poet  describes  Diana's  discovery  of  the  nymph's  mis- 
step. The  scene  between  Diana  and  Actseon  is  also 
introduced  into  this  picture.  A  drawing  of  the  Callisto 
episode,  of  about  1635,  is  in  my  possession. 

*  These  drawings  and  the  others  that  will  be  named  are  described  by  C.  Hofstede 
de  Groot  in  his  Katalog  der  Handzeichnungen  Rembrandt's.     Haarlem,  1906. 

[137] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

3.  Europa.  A  picture  of  the  Rape  of  Europa, 
owned  by  Herr  Kappel  of  Berlin,  shows  the  moment 
when  the  god  changed  into  a  bull  slipped  gently  from 
the  shore: 

Left  the  dry  meadow  and  approach 'd  the  seas 
Where  now  he  dips  his  hoofs  and  wets  his  thighs. 
Now  plunges  in  and  carries  off  the  prize.     .     .     . 

and  when  Europa 

.     .     .     .     looks  backward  on  the  shore 
And  hears  the  tumbling  billows  round  her  roar; 
But  still  she  holds  him  fast;  one  hand  is  borne 
Upon  his  back,  the  other  grasps  a  horn; 
Her  train  of  ruffling  garments  flies  behind, 
Swells  in  the  air  and  hovers  in  the  wind. 

As  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  no  other  artist  has  so 
faithfully  adhered  to  the  text  in  the  placing  of  Europa's 
hands. 

4.  Diana  and  Actseon.  In  1630  or  thereabouts 
Rembrandt  both  painted  and  etched  the  single  figure  of 
Diana  as  she  puts  her  feet  in  the  water  and,  startled, 
looks  around  for  Actseon  who  is  no  longer  visible.  In 
the  picture  at  Anholt  already  named  (2),  which  was 
painted  five  years  later,  the  artist  borrows  directly  from 
the  poet:  Diana,  accompanied  by  a  number  of  nymphs, 
dashes  the  water  on  the  bewildered  huntsman,  the 
metamorphosis  of  whose  head  is  already  accomplished. 
Rembrandt's  contemporaries  must  have  recognized  his 
faithful  following  of  the  text,  for  in  1677  a  print  from 
the  main  group  of  this  picture  was  used  as  an  illustra- 

[138] 


REMBRANDT    AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

tion  in  a  Brussels  edition  of  Ovid.  In  two  drawings, 
one  in  the  Louvre,  the  other  at  Dresden,  the  artist 
again  makes  use  of  the  same  material.  The  second, 
which  dates  from  the  'sixties,  shows  the  nymphs,  in 
accordance  with  the  text,  pressing  closely  around  the 
goddess  to  conceal  her  from  prying  glances. 

5.  Narcissus.  In  a  drawing  at  Lille  Rembrandt  has 
shown  Narcissus  mirroring  himself  in  the  water.  A 
mythological  representation  at  Amsterdam  which  for  a 
time  was  called  Narcissus,  but  incorrectly,  as  the  figure 
gazing  at  its  own  reflection  is  that  of  a  young  woman, 
is  no  longer  considered  genuine. 

6.  Pyramus  and  Thisbe.  This  story,  retold  in 
poetry  a  few  decades  earlier  by  Rembrandt's  great 
kinsman  in  the  spirit,  Shakespeare,  inspired  the  artist 
of  brush  and  pencil  also.  In  Berlin  alone  there  are 
three  drawings  of  the  final  scene  of  this  tragedy  of 
love,  and  to  these  must  be  added  one  at  Amsterdam, 
another  at  Munich,  and  a  third  in  the  Friedrich  Au- 
gust II  Collection  at  Dresden.  In  one  of  the  Berlin 
sketches  Thisbe  gazes  at  the  dead  Pyramus  with  a 
pitying  glance.  In  the  one  at  Amsterdam  she  clasps 
her  hands  in  sorrow  at  the  sight.  Grieving,  she  holds 
her  head  in  her  hands  in  the  second  of  the  Berlin 
drawings.  Following  the  course  of  the  story,  in  the 
sketch  at  Dresden  she  draws  the  dagger  from  the  breast 
of  her  beloved.  x\nd,  finally,  in  the  third  Berlin  ex- 
ample and  in  the  one  at  Munich  Thisbe  stabs  herself 
with  the  dagger  of  Pyramus. 

7.  Andromeda.  A  picture  dating  from  about  1632 
with  the  single  figure  of  Andromeda  was  discovered  and 
acquired  by  Bredius  not  long  ago.     It  seems  to  have 

[139] 


THE   ART    OF   THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

been  cut  away  at  one  side,  although  it  is  hard  to  imag- 
ine how  a  Perseus  could  have  been  introduced. 

8.  Ceres.  From  the  story  of  Ceres  Rembrandt 
chose  two  episodes.  In  a  picture  of  the  Rape  of 
Proserpine,  now  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  he  tells  with 
the  impetuosity  of  youth,  yet  with  a  discreet  respect 
for  the  text,  of  Pluto's  furious  chariot-ride,  showing 
how  the  flowers  which  Proserpine  had  gathered  in  a 
basket  and  in  her  uplifted  garment  "fall  from  the  fly- 
ing skirt, "  and  how  her  friends  convulsively  cling  to  its 
long  folds  while  the  frightened  maiden  calls  in  despair 
to  her  mother  as  the  dark  steeds  drag  the  chariot  into 
the  deep-flowing  lake  called  Pergus  near  the  walls  of 
Enna.  The  second  episode  appears  in  a  drawing  that 
dates  from  the  'fifties  where  three  figures  are  standing 
quietly  together:  the  goddess,  a  torch  in  her  hand,  is 
quenching  her  thirst,  while  a  woman  looks  wonderingly 
at  a  boy  who  is  mocking  at  Ceres. 

9.  Marsyas.  A  drawing  at  Berlin,  a  naked  man 
bound  to  a  tree  and  gazing  upward  with  a  despairing 
glance,  is  more  probably  a  Marsyas  than,  as  has  been 
assumed,  a  Prometheus. 

10.  It  has  not  yet  been  decided  what  scene  from 
the  underworld  is  shown  in  a  drawing  at  Munich 
where  a  number  of  shades  are  pleading  with  Pluto  and 
Proserpine,  Cerberus  is  on  guard  in  the  foreground, 
and  a  woman  leads  a  warrior  to  another  masculine 
figure.  Ovid  tells  similar  tales  in  connection  with  Or- 
pheus and  Eurydice  and  with  Ino  and  Athamas. 

11.  Philemon  and  Baucis.  Rembrandt  made  seve- 
ral drawings  of  the  visit  of  Jupiter  and  Mercury  to 
Philemon  and  Baucis.     Those  at  Berlin  and  at  Am- 

[140] 


REMBRANDT,    THE    RAPE    OF    PROSERPINE 

K.\ISER    FRIEDRICH    MUSEUM,    BERLIN 


BEMBRANDT   AT    THE   LATIN    SCHOOL 

sterdam  are  studies  for  the  picture,  painted  shortly 
before  1660,  which  is  owned  by  Mr.  Otto  H.  Kahn  of 
New  York,  and  show  the  artist  still  searching  for  the 
moment  best  suited  to  representation.  First  he  de- 
picts Philemon  and  Baucis  preparing  the  repast  — 
Philemon,  trying  to  grasp  the  goose,  falls  to  the  ground; 
then  he  decides  to  render  the  moment  when  the  gods 
reveal  themselves  —  the  two  old  people  kneel  in  prayer 
before  them.  In  these  compositions  the  artist  proves 
his  familiarity  with  the  antique  world  by  showing 
Jupiter  and  Mercury  in  half-recumbent  attitudes,  by 
introducing  the  sacred  birds,  and  by  utilizing  for  the 
head  of  Jupiter,  as  is  very  evident,  some  work  of  sculp- 
ture like  the  Zeus  of  Otricoli. 

12.  Vertumnus  and  Pomona.  This  story,  which  in 
his  day  was  very  often  interpreted  by  the  Flemings  and 
the  painters  of  Utrecht,  attracted  Rembrandt  also. 
His  version  of  it  is  preserved  in  a  drawing  now  at 
Stockholm. 

In  addition  to  the  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid  Rem- 
brandt made  use  of  various  passages  from  Livy's  his- 
tory. In  several  drawings  he  has  told  of  the  fortitude 
of  Mucins  Scaevola,  in  others  of  the  passion  of  Tarquin, 
who,  as  Lucretia  repulses  him,  threatens  her  with  a 
dagger;  and  in  one  drawing  and  several  paintings  he 
has  portrayed  the  death  of  Lucretia.  At  Madrid 
there  is  a  picture  of  the  dying  Sophonisba,  the  spouse 
of  Syphax  and  daughter  of  Hasdrubal,  to  whom  Mas- 
inissa  sent  the  poisoned  bowl.  Even  a  passage  from 
the  eighth  Philippic  of  Cicero  must  have  dwelt  in  the 
artist's  memory,  for  a  drawing  at  Rennes  shows  the 
scene  between  Antiochus  and  the  Roman  consul,  other- 

[141] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

wise  quite  unknown  to  the  art  of  Holland.  To  an 
external  impulse,  a  commission  from  the  city  of  Amster- 
dam, was  due  the  great  composition  of  the  year  1662, 
the  Conspiracy  of  Claudius  Civilis,  a  theme  supphed 
by  the  Annals  of  Tacitus.  Probably  the  same  may  be 
said  of  a  large  picture  in  the  possession  of  Sedelmeyer, 
the  Parisian  dealer,  which,  following  Livy  or  Valerius 
Maximus,  represents  Suessa  ordering  his  father,  Quin- 
tus  Fabius  Maximus,  to  dismount  from  his  horse. 

In  another  group  of  illustrations  of  the  stories  of  an- 
cient Rome  the  subjects  are  clear  enough  but  I  cannot 
feel  sure  of  the  source  from  which  Rembrandt  derived 
his  knowledge  of  them.  They  include  a  mythological 
scene,  Jupiter  and  Antiope;  one  from  the  history  of  the 
Roman  republic,  Scipio  and  the  Spanish  Bride;  and  one 
from  the  period  of  the  decline  of  the  empire,  the  blind 
Belisarius  sitting  as  a  beggar  by  the  wayside.  It  can- 
not be  said  whether  the  etching  of  Cleopatra  men- 
tioned in  the  inventory  of  Clement  de  Jonghes  soon 
after  Rembrandt's  death  has  been  lost  or  should  be 
recognized  in  one  of  those  that  we  possess. 

Finally,  there  are  still  a  few  works  representing  single 
figures  of  Roman  deities,  Minerva  peacefully  occupied 
in  her  study,  Bellona  panopUed  for  war.  Mars  with  the 
fiery  eyes  of  youth  watching  for  an  adversary.  Dur- 
ing his  last  years  Rembrandt  was  at  work  on  a  Jimo 
that  has  not  been  preserved. 

In  comparison  with  the  many  works  for  which  Rem- 
brandt drew  inspiration  from  Latin  authors  those  in- 
spired by  the  writers  of  Greece  make  a  scanty  showing. 
An  etching,  not  a  very  successful  one,  of  Jupiter  and 
Danae  and  a  well-known  large  painting,  the  Ganymede 

[142] 


REMBRANDT   AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

of  the  Dresden  Gallery,  were  produced  at  the  time 
when  he  took  the  most  interest  in  the  antique  world, 
between  1630  and  1635.  From  tliis  period  we  have 
also  a  Greek  inscription  on  a  picture,  the  beginning  of 
the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians,  which  Rem- 
brandt doubtless  took  from  the  Greek  Testament  that 
he  had  preserved  from  his  schooldays.  When  in  his 
later  years  he  occupied  himself  with  Homer,  he  was 
probably  attracted  more  by  the  imaginative  presenta- 
tion of  great  men  and  poets  than  by  that  charm  of 
strange  tales  which  had  appealed  to  him  at  an  earlier 
time.  He  owned  a  copy  of  the  familiar  portrait  bust 
of  Homer  and  pictured  to  himself  how  the  blind  poet 
sang  —  either  alone,  or  like  the  venerable  Goethe  with 
only  a  scribe  beside  him  to  whom  he  was  dictating,  or, 
surrounded  by  a  circle  of  wise  men,  reciting  his  poems 
under  the  open  sky.  Passages  from  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssej^  must  have  remained  in  the  painter's  memory, 
for  from  the  one  he  took  the  beautiful  scene  between 
Achilles  and  Briseis  which  Rubens  also  painted,  from 
the  other  the  story  of  the  vengeance  wreaked  by  Vulcan 
when  he  caught  Mars  and  Venus  in  a  net  and  exhibited 
them  to  the  gods.  Perhaps  it  was  Jan  Six  who  brought 
Rembrandt,  at  more  than  fifty  years  of  age,  into 
touch  again  with  the  Greek  world,  for  the  drawing  of 
Homer  on  Parnassus  of  the  year  1652  is  dedicated  to 
Six  and  is  bound  into  the  guest-book,  called  the  Pan- 
dora Album,  of  the  Six  family,  and  only  a  few  years 
earlier  Rembrandt  had  etched  an  illustration  for  Six's 
tragedy,  Medea,  a  copy  of  which  he  had  in  his  little 
library. 

As  upon  Shakespeare,  so  also  upon  Rembrandt  his 

[143] 


■ovr- 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

contemporaries  made  two  diverse  demands:  he  was 
expected  to  exert  a  moral  influence  and  to  represent 
the  figures  of  antiquity.  Seldom  could  either  great 
artist  successfully  solve  the  problem  so  inartistically 
presented.  In  Shakespeare's  case  we  feel  it  superfluous 
when  the  moral  of  a  drama  is  set  forth  at  its  conclu- 
sion, and  we  cannot  fully  enjoy  scenes  of  poetic  import 
when  they  are  filled  with  pictures  from  the  antique 
world.  Neither  the  poet's  portrayals  of  antiquity  nor 
Rembrandt's  allegories  show  his  art  at  its  best.  As 
didacticism  disturbs  us  in  the  poet's  case  so  in  the 
painter's  does  the  Baroque  setting  of  his  scenes,  hardly 
suited  to  a  world  which,  according  to  modern  ideas, 
must  have  been  symmetrically  and  harmoniously  fash- 
ioned, but  which  revealed  itself  to  the  fancy  of  a  young 
self-confident  northern  painter  in  the  likeness  of  his 
own  time.  Moreover,  the  tales  of  ancient  Greece  and 
Rome  are  less  familiar  now  than  they  were  to  a  culti- 
vated Hollander  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  there- 
fore the  fundamental  human  significance  that  underlies 
them  in  Rembrandt's  work  is  not  immediately  apparent. 
It  is  not  as  quickly  grasped  as  when  an  incident  is 
drawn  from  a  Biblical  narrative.  Something  better, 
perhaps,  has  taken  the  place, of  this  kind  of  learning 
in  the  modern  mind  —  a  conception  of  the  artistic 
spirit  of  antiquity;  and  it  no  longer  coincides  with  the 
ideas  of  the  painters  of  the  Baroque  period. 

None  the  less  Rembrandt,  who  was  born  to  express 
the  essence  of  all  the  intellectual  and  artistic  aspira- 
tions of  his  race,  has  given  us  the  best  interpretation 
of  the  classic  world  that  was  produced  in  his  fatherland. 
How  unbearable  are  the  antique  or  allegorical  essays 

[144] 


REMBRANDT    AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

of  the  other  important  Dutchmen  of  his  time  —  Jan 
Vermeer's  commonplace  New  Testament  allegories,  Jan 
Steen's  grotesque  picture  of  the  Rape  of  the  Sabines 
or  of  the  Temperance  of  Scipio,  Metsu's  unmeaning 
blacksmith  Vulcan  or  his  clumsy  allegories  of  Justice 
or  Faith,  Paul  Potter's  almost  comical  Dutch  Orpheus 
surrounded  by  tame  beasts,  the  incredible  Argus  of 
Adriaen  van  der  Velde  —  not  to  speak  of  lesser  masters 
and  their  unintentional  drolleries!  It  is  true  that  in 
the  earlier  works  of  Rembrandt  himself  the  gods  make 
merely  the  effect  of  costumed  Dutchmen  in  an  environ- 
ment of  customary  studio  properties.  But  in  the  course 
of  time  his  constant  familiarity  with  the  works  of  art 
of  other  nations  developed  the  ability  to  give  his  scenes 
a  more  truthfully  historical  setting,  and  as  his  types 
came  more  into  keeping  with  the  prescribed  conditions 
the  disparity  grew  less  between  the  two  worlds,  the 
classic  and  the  Dutch,  that  he  wanted  to  combine. 
How  truly  Roman  seems  to  a  naive  beholder  the  Tri- 
umph of  Suessa  where  lictors  march  beside  the  military 
commander  while  the  insignia  of  Rome  —  eagles,  ban- 
ners, and  escutcheons  —  are  carried  behind  him.  And 
looking  at  Rembrandt's  hoary  Homer,  who  can  think 
first  of  the  fact  that  he  was  created  by  a  Hollander  of 
the  Baroque  period?  Who  can  fail  to  recognize  at 
once  a  great  artist  telling  of  a  poet  of  the  older  time 
in  a  language  that  every  age  must  understand?  If 
the  greatest  artists  of  northern  countries  concerned 
themselves  at  times  with  the  study  of  the  antique, 
despite  the  feeling  they  must  have  had  that  to  accept 
the  ideals  of  an  unfamiliar  world  would  at  the  outset 
do  them  more  harm  than  good,  it  was  because  they  were 

[145  ] 


THE   ART    OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

rightly  convinced  that  in  the  end  a  knowledge  of  a 
purer  language  of  form  could  not  fail  to  exert  an  inspir- 
ing and  enlightening  influence  upon  their  own  style. 
It  was  by  reason  of  Rembrandt's  acquaintance  with 
the  art  of  other  peoples,  and  especially  those  of  the 
south,  that  his  personages  developed  from  inhabitants 
of  a  small  Dutch  city  into  figures  which  to  the  eye  of 
every  observer  seem  to  express  the  best  in  his  own  nature. 

Not  only  Rembrandt's  portrayals  of  antiquity,  but 
also  certain  fragments  of  humanistic  ways  of  thinking 
that  are  preserved  in  his  biographies,  remind  us  of  the 
training  that  he  received  at  school.  Calligraphy, 
verse-making,  and  "disputations"  are  occasionally  men- 
tioned. For  many  years  the  painter  was  on  friendly 
terms  with  Coppenol,  one  of  the  foremost  calligraphists 
of  Amsterdam,  twice  he  painted  his  portrait,  and  in 
the  inventory  of  his  art  collections  there  is  mention  of 
a  portfolio  of  admirable  specimens  of  writing  which 
were  probably  from  Coppenol's  pen.  Rembrandt  him- 
self wrote  a  hand  that  shows  training.  Very  crabbed 
and  unskilful  by  comparison  is  the  writing  of  his  father 
or  his  mother.  He  does  indeed  form  his  firm  letters 
according  to  his  own  sovereign  will,  but  he  likes  to 
adorn  the  long  ones  with  flourishes,  loves  scrolling  ini- 
tials, and  has  a  personal  and  singularly  beautiful  way  of 
arranging  his  page. 

What  seem  to  us  in  his  letters  stilted  or  involved 
expressions  may  well  have  been  thought  in  his  day  the 
elements  of  beauty  of  style.  The  current  liking  for 
"occasional"  poems  speaks  emphatically  from  numer- 
ous verses  in  praise  of  his  work  that  were  composed 
even  during  his  lifetime.     Some  are  of  the  most  naive 

[146] 


REMBRANDT   AT    THE    LATIN   SCHOOL 

and  simple  kind,  like  the  lines  that  his  pupil  Philip 
Koninck  wrote  on  one  of  the  master's  landscapes: 

Dees  tekeningh  vertoont  de  buiten  amstelkant 

Soo  braaf  getekent  door  heer  Rembrandt's  eygen  hard. 

(This  picture  shows  the  Amstel's  outer  strand, 
So  bravely  painted  by  Heer  Rembrandt's  hand.) 

And  from  distiches  of  this  sort  the  tributes  range  to 
the  most  Baroque  rhymed  compositions  where  sophis- 
ticated phrases  about  the  relations  of  nature  and  art  are 
woven  into  complicated  rhythms.  At  least  one  little 
rhyme,  a  witness  to  the  uprightness  of  his  character, 
has  been  preserved  as  Rembrandt  himself  wrote  it  in 
1634  in  the  album  of  a  German  traveller  from  Wei- 
mar: 

Een  vroom  gemoet 

Acht  eer  voor  goed. 

(An  upright  spirit 

Holds  honour  above  wealth.) 

Verse-making  of  this  kind  reveals  that  striving  for 
clever  turns  of  phrase  which,  in  all  times  of  high  artis- 
tic development,  characterizes  the  conversational  and 
literary  intercourse  of  cultivated  men,  as  we  realize 
if  we  remember  the  sonnet-writing  of  the  Italian  Ren- 
aissance and  the  dialogues  in  Shakespeare's  plays. 
And  this  striving  must  have  been  more  pleasingly 
expressed  in  verbal  contests  —  in  "disputations,"  to 
use  the  term  that  was  current  in  Rembrandt's  scholarly 
time  —  than  in  the  "occasional"  poem  which  put 
trifling  thoughts  into  complicated  forms  in  the  effort 
to  preserve  them  to  all  eternity.     Hoogstraaten,  one 

[147] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

of  Rembrandt's  pupils,  tells  how  he  and  his  studio 
associates  often  disputed  with  the  master  upon  theo- 
retical questions,  and  such  conversations  were  prob- 
ably couched  in  the  lively  sparkling  turns  of  phrase 
then  in  vogue.  There  was  more  concern  for  art  in  the 
utterance,  for  piquant  brilliant  retorts,  than  for  the 
expression  of  significant  ideas.  For  instance,  one  mem- 
ber of  the  circle,  Carel  Fabritius,  asks:  "How  may 
one  know  whether  a  young  painter  gives  promise  of 
ability.'^"  Hoogstraaten  answers:  "By  the  fact  that, 
as  befits  his  age,  he  not  only  seems  to  love  art  but  ac- 
tually is  in  love  with  the  portrayal  of  nature."  Or 
Hoogstraaten  asks:  "How  can  one  tell  whether  a 
story  is  well  interpreted.'^ "  And  the  answer  runs :  "  From 
a  knowledge  of  the  story."  There  is  more  mean- 
ing in  the  advice  Rembrandt  himself  gives  his  pupil 
when  he  bothers  him  with  needless  questions  about 
the  secrets  of  the  artist's  craft,  but  Hoogstraaten 
cites  it  chiefly  on  account  of  its  admirable  form  — 
partially  lost,  of  course,  in  a  translation:  "Take  pains 
to  use  well  the  knowledge  you  already  have;  thus  you 
will  soon  enough  discover  what  is  now  concealed." 
Nothing  testifies  more  clearly  to  the  influence  that  hu- 
manistic culture  exerted  upon  Rembrandt,  who  stood 
at  the  centre  of  this  little  circle  of  painters,  than  these 
deliberately  artistic  locutions  in  which  at  a  later  period 
he  still  indulged. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  farther  of  the  impor- 
tance to  Rembrandt  of  the  religious  views  so  assiduously 
inculcated  at  the  Latin  school.  In  this  connection  no 
stress  should  be  laid  upon  his  school  training,  for  the 
main  thing  was  the  religious  feeling  that  was  a  funda- 

[148] 


REMBRANDT,    A    SCHOLAR 

PRINT    ROOM,    DRESDEN 


REMBRANDT   AT    THE    LATIN    SCHOOL 

mental  part  of  his  nature  before  he  went  to  school. 
Yet  when  we  remember  that  the  boy  must  have  had  a 
daily  familiarity  with  the  Bible  —  even  at  home  where 
his  mother  loved  to  absorb  herself  in  its  perusal,  and 
perhaps  read  it  aloud  to  him  while  he  was  painting  her 
portrait  —  then  it  seems  worthy  of  note  that  outside 
influences  should  have  strengthened  early  tendencies 
in  so  marked  a  degree.  Nor  may  we  forget  that  in 
later  days  Rembrandt  loved  to  portray  the  Psalmist 
whose  songs  he  had  sung  in  school,  that  he  owned  a 
harp,  and  that  he  was  able  to  depict  in  an  impressive 
fashion  the  effect  of  the  harpstrings  and  the  voice  of 
song  upon  the  wrathful  spirit  of  Saul. 

It  is  certain  that  Rembrandt  did  not  turn  his  back 
in  disgust  upon  scholarship  when  he  determined  to 
become  a  painter.  His  life's  work  shows  that  as  time 
went  on  he  seemed  to  behold,  as  though  encircled  by  a 
nimbus,  that  humanistic  career  upon  which  he  had 
entered  as  a  child,  partly,  perhaps,  by  his  own  desire. 
In  after  years,  so  a  contemporary  declares,  he  was 
always  one  of  those  who  liked  to  learn  from  books  how 
to  give  their  pictures  a  truly  historical  aspect.  In 
fact,  something  like  the  scholar's  spirit  must  have  been 
part  of  his  endowment.  His  art  collections  are  another 
proof  of  this.  They  included,  as  we  know,  important 
products  of  almost  every  land  and  period ;  and  while  he 
acknowledged  their  value  by  the  frequent  use  he  made 
of  them  in  his  own  compositions,  he  showed  in  regard 
to  the  art  of  other  men  a  just  discrimination,  based 
upon  historical  knowledge,  which  in  his  time  the  his- 
torians of  art  did  not  possess  —  not  even  Vasari  or 
van  Mander.     Only  the  modem  science  of  criticism 

[149] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

judges  in  so  well-balanced  a  way.  Rembrandt  stands 
almost  by  himself  among  great  artists  as  regards  this 
many-sided  view  of  art;  Rubens  alone  had  the  same 
cosmopolitan  outlook.  But  while,  as  the  elder  artist, 
Rubens  seems  to  have  thought  little  of  the  Dutch 
master,  Rembrandt  admired  the  great  Fleming  and 
his  circle  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  their  art  is  so  alien  to 
his  own  that  many  lovers  of  the  one  find  it  difficult  to 
do  reverence  to  the  other. 

Rembrandt's  understanding  of  the  scholar's  spirit 
is  manifested  also  in  external  ways.  No  other  Dutch 
painter  portrays  with  so  much  pleasure  and  sympathy 
the  sage  who  is  striving  for  knowledge.  Rembrandt 
idealized  him  in  pictures  that,  as  the  logical  successors 
of  the  studious  St.  Jeromes  of  Primitive  painters, 
give  these  a  broader  significance,  and  he  interpreted 
the  characteristics  of  men  of  learning  in  portraits  that 
are  more  veracious  than  those  by  other  artists  of  the 
time.  The  scholars  of  Jan  Vermeer  or  Gabriel  Metsu 
coquet  with  learning;  they  are  dandies  who  consider 
how  they  may  sit  most  comfortably  at  their  desks,  and 
who  love  to  listen  to  the  scratching  of  their  own  pens. 
Those  of  Gerard  Dou  or  Thomas  Wyck  are  pedants 
or  slovenly  dirty  bookworms  who  shut  their  eyes  to  the 
beauty  of  the  world  and  think  that  they  have  compassed 
all  knowledge  because  they  live  in  a  cage  full  of  folios. 
But  the  earnest  eyes  of  Rembrandt's  sages  tell  that  an 
inner  impulse  drives  them  to  effort,  that  they  make  use 
of  learning  to  express  the  best  in  their  own  natures, 
that  they  have  seen  much  of  life  and  can  give  much  by 
giving  of  themselves. 

[150] 


VIII 
REMBRANDT'S  BLINDING  OF  SAMSON 

THE  mastery  of  chiaroscuro  shown  in  Rem- 
brandt's pictures  may  suggest  that  he  was  an  ar- 
tist of  an  equable  temperament  who  Uved  out  of 
the  world  in  peaceful  seclusion.  Nothing  could  be  far- 
ther from  the  truth.  Strength  is  the  predominant  factor 
in  his  art.  His  technique  is  the  best  proof  that  his  own 
nature  expressed  itself  forcibly  even  when  he  was  most 
deeply  affected  by  the  theme  that  he  was  treating.  If, 
straying  through  the  Rijks  Museum  at  Amsterdam, 
where  all  his  contemporaries  dwell  under  the  same  roof 
with  him,  we  compare  the  excellences  of  one  and  another 
and  then  come  upon  a  work  of  Rembrandt's,  they  all  pale 
and  shrink  in  the  presence  of  his  Promethean  force. 
Manifold  conceptions  of  art  speak  from  their  paintings. 
From  Rembrandt's  there  speaks  a  personality  that  has 
more  power  than  art  of  any  kind.  His  way  of  seeing 
and  of  rendering  what  he  has  seen  testifies  to  such 
strength  of  will  and  such  an  unremitting  tension  of  the 
emotions  that  we  are  convinced  that  no  one  ever  pene- 
trated farther  than  he  into  the  deep  and  hidden  things 
of  life,  or  fought  the  battles  of  the  soul  more  valiantly. 

[151] 


THE   ART  OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

In  the  products  of  his  latter  years  this  passionate 
intensity  is  a  masked,  a  hidden,  force.  But  there  was 
a  period  in  his  career  when  he  interpreted  Hfe  with  his 
full  powers  and  with  a  direct  and  vigorous  purpose  — 
the  period  when  his  fame  was  greatest,  between  1635 
and  1640.  And  of  no  work  is  this  more  true  than  of 
his  Blinding  of  Samson,  a  picture  which  was  not 
rightly  valued  until  it  had  been  transferred  from  a 
badly  lighted  private  collection  in  Vienna  to  the  Stadel 
Institute  at  Frankfort. 

The  hanging  of  Rembrandt's  paintings,  it  may  be 
noted,  is  not  a  matter  of  small  importance.  It  is  not 
by  accident  that  more  in  regard  to  its  placing  has 
been  written  of  the  Night  Watch  than  of  any  other 
picture.  Rembrandt's  art  is  as  subjective  as  it  is 
vigorous.  It  can  come  to  its  full  flowering  only  in  a 
special  atmosphere,  just  as  it  needs  for  its  right  under- 
standing a  specially  constituted  observer.  When  Rem- 
brandt presented  the  Blinding  of  Samson  to  his 
distinguished  patron,  Constantijn  Huygens,  he  wrote: 
"Hang  this  picture,  sir,  in  a  strong  light,  and  so  that 
one  may  stand  at  a  distance  from  it;  thus  it  will  appear 
at  its  best. "  This  is  the  only  mention  of  one  of  his  own 
works  in  the  few  letters  of  Rembrandt's  that  have  been 
preserved,  and  it  refers  to  the  matter  of  lighting. 

Rembrandt's  Blinding  of  Samson  may  be  con- 
sidered from  various  points  of  view.  As  a  picture, 
quite  apart  from  any  questions  of  origin,  it  will  at  once 
impress  both  artist  and  layman.  The  layman  will 
think  primarily  of  the  subject,  and  in  this  case  he  has  a 
right  to  do  so,  for  the  theme  and  its  dramatic  shaping 
were  important  to  Rembrandt  himself.     And  who  could 

[152] 


REMBRANDT  S    BLINDING    OF   SAMSON 

resist  the  appeal  of  this  drama?  —  the  sight  of  this  Titan 
dashed  from  shining  heights  into  nocturnal  darkness, 
borne  down  on  the  right  and  the  left  by  steel-clad  hire- 
lings as  by  two  mighty  cudgels  while,  triumphing  in  her 
joy,  his  vanquisher  waves  like  a  firebrand  the  "seven 
locks"  of  hair.  But  there  is  as  much  justification  for 
the  artist  who,  attentive  to  external  qualities,  admires 
the  complicated  arrangement  of  the  picture,  for  with 
inimitable  skill  Rembrandt  has  achieved  an  harmonious 
interplay  of  movement  and  counter-movement,  of  plas- 
tic forms  and  unfilled  spaces,  of  long-drawn  curves 
and  short  rippling  lines.  The  colouring  —  Samson  is 
dressed  in  yellow,  Delilah  in  blue,  and  the  soldier  with 
the  halberd  in  red  —  is  of  the  greatest  simplicity  yet 
of  the  greatest  richness.  It  should  be  noticed  how 
varied  are  the  shades  of  the  blue  where  it  comes  into 
contact  with  the  costume  of  the  LandshnecJit,  how  it 
takes  a  pearl-gray  tone  when  it  stands  near  purple,  or 
a  sky-blue  or,  again,  a  violet-gray  tone,  according  as  it 
meets  scarlet  or  red-brown,  how  the  modifications  of 
the  red  correspond  to  the  incidence  of  the  light,  and 
what  delightful  tints  the  greenish  lemon-yellow  of  Sam- 
son's doublet  assumes  under  the  strong  illumination. 
At  the  same  time  each  colour  is  appropriate  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  wearer:  the  strong  yellow  befits  the  hercu- 
lean strength  of  the  hero,  and  the  flickering  blue,  the 
colour  of  yearning  passion,  suits  the  sensual  excitement 
that  possesses  Delilah.  Furthermore,  the  colours  are 
made  to  play  their  part  in  the  definition  of  space,  for 
the  succession  of  red,  yellow,  and  blue  toward  the  depth 
of  the  picture  accords  with  the  relative  length  of  the 
ether-waves  that  produce  these  colours. 

[153] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

In  addition  to  its  general  artistic  interest  this  picture 
has  an  historical  significance  that  must  appeal  to  all 
who  like  to  see  great  periods  and  the  great  spirits  of  the 
past  mirrored  in  immortal  works. 

By  nature  the  Hollander  is  peaceful  and  moderate, 
serious  and  thoughtful,  as  Rembrandt's  work,  taken  as 
a  whole,  goes  far  to  prove.  But  it  would  be  an  error 
to  assume  that  he  lacks  passion.  Fearing  to  compro- 
mise his  dignity,  he  long  maintains  his  reserve;  but 
when  passion  overcomes  him  it  suddenly  breaks  forth 
with  an  impetuosity  that  bursts  every  barrier.  What 
an  expression  of  unrestrained  brutahty  often  charac- 
terizes the  peasant  scenes  of  Dutch  painters!  Among 
Latin  peoples  suavity  and  grace  may  consist  with  an 
outbreak  of  passion,  and  to  the  light  Flemish  nature 
strong  emotions  are  not  so  unfamiliar  that  they  are  apt 
to  declare  themselves  abruptly.  But  in  his  more  ex- 
ceptional moods  the  Dutchman  loses  the  self-control 
which  at  other  times  he  maintains  to  an  excessive  de- 
gree, and  becomes  as  naive  and  ruthless  as  a  child,  as 
terrible  as  a  madman. 

Compared  with  one  of  the  fallen  angels  of  Rubens,  a 
figure  like  Rembrandt's  Samson  is  full  of  hard  corners 
and  edges.  At  certain  points  hands  and  feet  are  bent 
at  right  angles.  Rubens  would  not  have  permitted 
such  sharp  lines  as  those  of  the  soldier's  halberd  in  the 
foreground  and  the  corner  of  the  curtain  to  cut  across 
the  composition,  nor  would  he  have  created  such  abrupt 
diagonals  as  those  of  Samson's  right  foot  and  the  lines 
that  unite  it  with  the  head  of  the  man  who  is  lying  under 
him.  In  this  composition  of  only  five  figures  the  hard 
fines  running  counter  to  one  another  produce  a  more 

[154] 


REMBRANDT  S    BLINDING    OF    SAMSON 

vivid  impression  of  a  wild  chaotic  turmoil  than  the 
harmonized  lines  of  other  painters  in  compositions  with 
ten  times  as  many  figures.  When  Rubens  paints  a 
dramatic  scene  the  individual  bends  before  the  whirl- 
wind that  sways  the  group  as  a  whole.  But  in  this 
picture  of  Rembrandt's  each  personage  obeys  only  the 
laws  of  his  own  being,  and  with  incredible  vigour  en- 
forces his  will  upon  the  course  of  the  action.  Every 
movement  —  the  action  of  the  self-confident  soldier 
firmly  grasping  his  halberd,  of  Samson  clenching  his 
fists,  of  the  executioner  who  seizes  the  hero  around  the 
body,  and  of  the  one  who  fastens  the  fetters  —  is  with- 
out a  parallel  as  the  expression  of  an  intense  and  con- 
centrated act  of  will. 

Nevertheless  there  is  a  unifying  element  in  the  com- 
position which  offsets  the  disintegrating  force  of  ac- 
centuated individuality.  It  is  not,  as  with  Rubens, 
the  vigorously  combined  action  of  bodies  all  swaying 
in  the  same  direction;  it  is  a  rhythm  of  contrasted 
movements  controlhng  all  the  figures.  Samson  has 
been  thrown  sidewise  to  the  ground  toward  the  right 
while  the  helmeted  soldier  who  is  wounding  him 
thrusts  at  him  from  the  opposite  side;  the  second  sol- 
dier draws  the  fetters  together  toward  the  left  again, 
and  on  this  same  side  the  third  presses  forward  from 
the  right-hand  comer  of  the  picture.  These  counter- 
movements  are  most  conspicuous  in  the  two  main  fig- 
ures, Samson  and  DeHlah.  The  action  of  Delilah, 
pressing  toward  the  other  side  of  the  frame  and  form- 
ing a  contrast  to  the  axis  of  the  figure  of  the  fallen  hero, 
is  brought  back  within  the  confines  of  the  picture  by 
the  opposite  movement  of  the  LandskneclU  whose  arched 

[155] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

silhouette  forms  an  admirable  finish  to  the  composition 
on  this  side.  Although  this  rhythm  prevails  all  through 
the  picture  it  is  most  effective  in  the  figures  that  can 
be  separately  considered,  DeHlah  and  the  Landsknecht. 
And  this  seems  natural  when  we  remember  that  this 
particular  kind  of  rhythm  is  merely  a  result  of  that 
tendency  to  individual  characterization  which  succeeds 
best  with  detached  figures.  As  in  Rembrandt's  com- 
positions each  figure  reluctantly  sacrifices  its  person- 
ality in  the  interest  of  the  whole,  his  representations  of 
crowds  are  often  confused  in  effect,  as  is  here  the  case 
in  a  small  way  with  the  group  of  soldiers  around  Sam- 
son. It  needs  a  search  to  discover  to  wliich  figures 
in  this  tangle  the  various  Umbs  belong.  It  is  possible, 
indeed,  that  the  artist  made  his  soldiers  somewhat 
alike  in  type  and  in  costume  in  order  to  give  the  group 
an  inner  coherence,  and  perhaps  he  needed  a  certain 
confusion  to  augment  the  horror  of  the  scene.  Yet  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  most  impressive  figures  are 
the  two  that  are  detached,  Delilah  and  the  Landsknecht, 
whereas  with  Rubens  the  figures  that  are  separated  from 
the  mass  are  often  weak  in  effect  because  insufiiciently 
individualized.  How  strongly  characterized  are  Deli- 
lah and  the  Landsknecht!  The  man  is  a  vagabond  of 
the  kind  that  excites  no  anger,  for  he  is  full  of  the  poetry 
of  gypsy  life.  He  is  at  one  with  his  picturesque  cos- 
tume as  is  the  Cossack  with  his  horse.  It  is  a  triumph 
of  northern  costume-painting  that  we  cannot  think  of 
him  apart  from  his  dress.  The  bristly  moustache  and 
the  cocked-up  fur  cap,  the  huge  fists  and  the  broad 
shoes,  the  wide  trunk-hose,  the  bluntly  curved  point 
of  the  halberd,  the  clumsy  curve  of  the  scabbard,  and 

[156] 


REMBRANDT  S   BLINDING    OF    SAMSON 

the  thick  turned-up  nose  —  all  seem  to  have  been  cast 
in  the  same  mould.  Of  course  at  bottom  it  is  simply 
the  artist's  sense  of  style  that  gives  the  figure  such 
completeness.  But  only  a  genius  can  thus  infuse  with 
his  own  spirit,  his  own  style,  a  comphcated  as  well  as 
a  simple  subject.  In  Delilah  we  have  an  absolute  con- 
trast to  the  women  of  Rubens  whose  life,  as  some  one 
has  said,  is  wholly  on  the  surface.  She  is  the  very 
embodiment  of  the  passion  that  glows  within  her  and 
flames  from  her  eyes.  Only  a  master  who  knew  how 
to  translate  into  colour  and  line  the  utmost  refinements 
of  emotional  experience  could  have  expressed  in  this 
countenance  such  mixed  feelings  as  voluptuousness  and 
cruelty,  pride  and  the  joy  of  victory. 

Moreover,  Rembrandt's  art  has  succeeded  in  making 
us  sympathize  with  the  victor  in  this  gruesome  scene.  In 
Dehlah  we  recognize  the  triumph  of  a  subtile  intelhgence 
over  the  gross  folly  of  her  lover.  Yet  we  admire  the  way 
in  which  one  man  struggles  with  the  superior  strength 
of  four  and  almost  prevails  against  it.  We  look  with 
astonishment  at  these  fighters'  fists,  and  believe  in 
their  power  to  carry  off  the  gates  of  cities  and  to  break 
the  pillars  of  palaces  in  pieces.  But  as  in  all  this  ten- 
sion of  elemental  force  the  mind,  the  soul,  has  no  part, 
we  sympathize  more  with  the  mercenaries,  for,  worthy 
representatives  of  the  common  sort,  they  are  perform- 
ing their  task  like  men,  in  a  careful  and  competent  way. 
Riegl  once  called  the  Hollanders  the  painters  of  atten- 
tiveness.  The  Landsknecht  is  a  striking  example  of  this, 
a  true  Dutch  type,  a  combination  of  conscientiousness, 
persistence,  and  unerring  observation. 

The  Blinding  of  Samson  breathes  the  spirit  of  the 

[157] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

time  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  race.  It  dates  from 
that  period  of  the  artist's  life  when  he  was  most  strongly 
influenced  by  Baroque  art,  as  may  at  once  be  seen 
in  apparently  unimportant  details.  The  canvas  is  al- 
most square,  with  rounded  upper  corners,  a  form  that 
Rembrandt  repeatedly  chose  —  for  example,  for  the 
Sophonisba  at  Madrid,  the  Preaching  of  John  the 
Baptist  at  Berlin,  and  the  Danae  at  St.  Petersburg. 
It  is  a  form  characteristic  of  the  Baroque  period  which, 
loving  to  break  away  from  the  simple  proportions  of 
the  Renaissance,  used  the  oval  in  place  of  the  circle, 
and  an  oblong  or  only  approximately  square  shape  in 
place  of  the  actual  square.  So  also  it  rounded  the 
corners  of  the  upper  part  of  a  picture  into  shallow  curves 
instead  of  preserving  the  semicircular  shape  preferred 
in  Renaissance  times.  Probably  the  Blinding  of  Sam- 
son was  originally  fitted  into  a  slightly  curved  Baroque 
frame. 

All  the  decorations  of  the  splendid  scene  are  also 
Baroque  in  taste  —  the  draperies,  the  fantastic  cos- 
tumes, the  vessels  in  the  style  of  Lutma  on  the  table, 
and  the  various  weapons  which  are  specifically  Baroque 
in  their  outlines.  For  instance,  for  the  dagger  used  to 
blind  the  fallen  Samson,  Rembrandt  chose  not  merely  a 
Javanese  creese  but  one  with  a  wavy  blade;  and  this 
dagger  harmonizes  with  the  short  serpentine  lines  as- 
sumed by  the  contours  in  all  parts  of  the  composition, 
for  wherever  these  seem  to  be  elongated,  as  in  the  main 
diagonals,  they  are  always  curved,  to  be  cut  off  flat  at 
the  ends  or  to  form  obtuse  angles  with  lines  that  run 
counter  to  them. 

Finally,  the  distribution  of  the  Ught  is  Baroque,  and 

[158] 


REMBRANDT  S   BLINDING    OF   SAMSON 

in  a  double  sense.  On  one  side  it  throws  the  figures 
into  more  than  half-rehef;  elsewhere  it  reduces  them 
almost  to  silhouettes.  In  both  directions  this  exagger- 
ation, if  one  dare  call  it  so,  was  unknown  to  the  Renais- 
sance. To  take  an  example  from  an  allied  art,  we  need 
only  compare  a  Renaissance  medal  —  one  of  Pisanello's, 
say  —  with  a  Dutch  medal  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
The  diversity  in  conception  that  marks  the  two  periods 
shows  at  once  in  the  difference  in  the  character  of  the 
relief,  the  subject  in  the  one  case  scarcely  emerging 
from  the  field  while  in  the  other  it  is  raised  so  high 
that  the  figures  almost  seem  to  be  severed  from  the 
background.  In  a  similar  way  the  seventeenth-century 
painters,  markedly  subjective  in  temperament,  usually 
show  a  tendency  to  let  certain  parts  of  a  picture  stand 
out  in  front  of  its  first  plane.  It  is  not  needful  to  dwell 
upon  this  in  the  case  of  painters  like  Rubens  and  Jor- 
daens;  but  with  Rembrandt  too  it  often  happens  that 
hands  are  stretched  out  to  us,  horses  spring  forward 
from  within  the  frame,  and  —  the  Night  Watch  is  an 
instance  —  figures  appear  to  be  stepping  forth  from 
the  canvas.  About  the  year  1635  Rembrandt  seems 
to  have  made  studies  with  such  ends  in  view.  His  por- 
trait of  himself  with  a  helmet  at  Cassel  supplies  a  sort 
of  precedent  for  the  two  helmeted  men  who  stand  out 
from  the  Blinding  of  Samson  in  such  strong  relief; 
and  later  on  we  find  in  the  Night  Watch  an  analo- 
gous figure  of  a  soldier  whose  head  is  boldly  modelled 
out  from  the  picture.  This  exaggerated  kind  of  relief 
is  counterbalanced  by  the  attenuation  of  substantial 
things  to  shadowy  outlines.  These  methods  of  treat- 
ment, fully  developed  in  Rococo  art,  had  their  begin- 

[159] 


THE    ART   OF   THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

nings  in  Baroque  art,  and  to  no  small  degree  in  the  art  of 
Rembrandt.  As  a  rule  Rembrandt  depicts  the  shadow 
that  a  figure  casts  upon  the  wall  and  fuses  the  figure  with 
the  shadow  or  shows  it  as  a  silhouette  upon  a  luminous 
field,  as  in  the  early  representation  of  the  Supper  at 
Emmaus  in  the  Andre  Museum  at  Paris.  A  similar 
although  less  conspicuous  effect  may  be  noted  in  the 
treatment  of  our  Landsknecht  where  the  characteristic 
contour,  making  the  same  demands  as  a  silhouette,  has 
been  studied  with  exceptional  care. 

But  everything  in  this  picture  that  expresses  the 
spirit  of  the  time  or  the  spirit  of  the  race  is  comprised 
in  its  expression  of  personal  experience.  In  this  respect 
it  is  the  chief  monument  of  Rembrandt's  formative 
period,  which  has  been  called  his  period  of  storm  and 
stress,  and  which  coincided  with  the  first  happy  years 
of  his  married  life  with  Saskia  whose  type  of  face  may 
be  recognized  in  Delilah's.  It  was  then  universally  be- 
lieved in  Amsterdam  that  he  was  leading  a  riotous  ex- 
istence and  squandering  his  possessions  upon  his  young 
wife. 

The  picture  voices  a  delight  in  richness,  splendour, 
and  profusion.  It  reminds  us  of  some  tale  from  the 
Arabian  Nights.  Samson  is  clad  in  silk  with  a  brightly 
variegated  girdle,  Delilah  is  adorned  with  a  filmy  veil, 
bracelets  of  pearl,  and  golden  chains,  and  the  soldiers 
shine  in  burnished  armour,  richly  chased  weapons  in 
their  hands  and  feathers  on  their  heads.  At  this  time 
Rembrandt  loved  to  give  his  personages  full  voluptuous 
forms,  and  eyes  such  as  he  gave  them  neither  in  earlier 
nor  in  later  years,  passionate  eyes  that  turn  a  wide  gaze 
upon  the  world  and  drink  in  all  they  see.     Even  in  his 

[160] 


REMBRANDT,    THE    BLINDING    OF   SAMSON    (DETAIL) 

STAEDEL    INSTITUTE,    FRANKFORT 


REMBRANDT  S    BLINDING    OF    SAMSON 

portraits  he  gave  his  sitters  this  look  and  surrounded 
them  with  the  splendour  of  jewels  and  rich  stuffs.  The 
two  portrait  figures  in  the  Liechtenstein  Gallery  at 
Vienna,  painted  in  all  their  pomp  in  the  same  year  as 
our  picture,  may  well  be  compared  with  the  heads  of 
Delilah  and  the  Landsknecht. 

In  the  paintings  of  this  period,  including  the  Blind- 
ing of  Samson,  there  is  a  threefold  revelation  of 
Rembrandt's  mood.  They  reveal  sensuality  and  cruelty 
and,  lying  back  of  both  these  traits,  a  wild  and 
vague  kind  of  excitement  that  drove  the  figures  that 
grew  beneath  his  hand  into  agitated  tempestuous  ac- 
tion. More  than  once  pictures  like  the  Danae  at 
St.  Petersburg  and  the  idealized  portrait  of  Saskia  as 
Flora,  owned  by  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh,  have  been 
grouped  together  as  betraying  sensuality;  and  beside 
them  may  be  set  the  indecent  sketches  that  give  rein 
to  the  broad  humour  of  a  northern  barbarian  and  even 
inject  it  into  Biblical  scenes  such  as  the  Preaching  of 
John  the  Baptist  at  Berlin.  As  sensuality  and  cruelty 
are  blood  relations,  it  is  not  by  chance  that  we  find 
compositions  of  this  period  that  seem  to  reveal  an 
utter  lack  of  feeling  which  Rembrandt  less  than  any 
one  else  might  be  expected  to  show.  In  the  year  1635 
he  etched  the  Stoning  of  Stephen  where  one  of  the 
executioners  poises  a  huge  stone  that  threatens  to 
crush  the  feeble  and  slender  body  of  the  saint.  And 
in  the  same  category  belong  a  number  of  representa- 
tions of  the  Passion  and  certain  other  drawings  —  for 
example,  the  Beheading  of  Holofernes  where  the  trunk  of 
the  dead  man  immediately  confronts  the  spectator. 

Examples   of  the   expression   of   strong  excitement 

[161] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

need  hardly  be  cited.  Closely  akin  in  spirit  to  the 
Blinding  of  Samson  is  the  Abraham's  Sacrifice  of 
the  same  year,  particularly  the  second  version  of  it 
which  is  now  at  Munich.  In  the  study  for  this,  pre- 
served in  the  British  Museum,  the  fluttering  garments 
and  contorted  limbs  look  as  though  they  were  caught 
in  a  whirlwind.  Another  drawing,  equally  tumultuous, 
the  Christ  Bearing  the  Cross  in  the  Berlin  Print 
Room,  vividly  recalls  our  picture  in  its  arrangement. 
The  Virgin,  who  is  sinking  back,  and  the  woman  be- 
hind the  cross,  who  is  hurrying  forward,  may  be  com- 
pared in  their  contrasted  movements  to  the  figures  of 
Samson  and  Delilah.  In  other  cases  where  the  con- 
ception speaks  less  plainly  of  the  passionate  mood  that 
possessed  Rembrandt  at  this  time  the  technique  shows 
it  clearly  enough.  In  the  drawings  of  these  years  the 
pen  bites  deep  into  the  paper,  and  restless  confused 
flourishes  accompany  the  vigorous  main  lines. 

This  picture  of  the  Blinding  of  Samson,  which 
gives  the  key  to  an  understanding  of  all  the  forces 
that  swayed  the  artist  during  his  period  of  storm  and 
stress,  forces  that  elsewhere  reveal  themselves  singly, 
will  not  appeal  to  every  one.  It  will  not  please  the 
feminine  spirit  which  can  seldom  accept  brutaUty  even 
when  it  assumes  an  artistic  form.  It  will  not  content 
the  decadent  sentimentalist  who  would  rather  see  the 
Landsknecht  playing  with  his  dagger  in  front  of  Samson's 
eyes,  as  Salome  disports  herself  before  the  head  of  John 
the  Baptist  in  Quentin  Metsys'  picture  at  Antwerp, 
or  who  may  crave  a  more  definite  portrayal  of  sensu- 
ality than  is  attempted  here,  where  the  charm  is  broken 
and  the  conflict  ended.     Nor  will  it  satisfy  those  among 

[162] 


/  pr  ,J  V/ 
I  I'' 


REMBRANDT,    CHRIST    BEARING    THE    CROSS 

PRINT    ROOM,    BERLIN 


REMBRANDT  S   BLINDING    OF   SAMSON 

the  painter's  admirers  who  care  only  for  the  Rem- 
brandt of  those  latter  years  when  he  was  sinking 
into  depths  of  meditation.  But  how  is  it  possible  to 
understand  the  final  results  of  the  life  of  such  an  artist 
unless  we  accompany  him  along  the  path  that  led  to 
them  ? 

Certainly  there  speak  from  his  later  works  an  un- 
fathomable experience,  an  astonishing  faculty  of  spirit- 
ual perception,  and  a  dominating  sense  of  melancholy 
calm  that  were  not  foretold  in  the  works  of  earlier 
years.  But  on  the  other  hand  his  old  age  lacked  what 
the  stormy  transition  period  between  youth  and  man- 
hood had  possessed  —  exultant  joy,  burning  passion, 
and  confidence  in  his  own  boundless  powers  and  in  a 
great  future.  It  is  by  reason  of  these  qualities  that 
Rembrandt's  earlier  works  instantly  take  us  captive. 
But  we  cannot  have  all  of  his  characteristics  in  the 
same  work  of  art;  there  is  not  room  in  the  soul  for 
storm  and  peacefulness  to  dwell  together.  And  while 
it  may  be  that  his  later  works  should  be  more  highly 
prized  than  the  earlier  ones,  while  it  may  be  that  the 
development  of  a  great  master  always  means  progress, 
nevertheless  this  much  is  certain:  in  many  of  the  pic- 
tures that  Rembrandt  painted  between  1630  and  1640 
he  reached  the  very  highest  level.  An  incessant  change 
of  problems  is  more  conspicuous  in  his  career  than  a 
growth  in  ability;  and  criticism  should  not  try  to  meas- 
ure these  steps  if  it  is  thereby  tempted  to  depreciate 
what  is  great  in  favour  of  something  that  may  be  even 
greater. 


[163] 


IX 

REMBRANDT'S  REPRESENTATIONS 

OF  SUSANNA 

WE  have  long  been  accustomed  to  the  unfa- 
vourable criticisms  passed  by  mediocre  painters 
upon  the  works  of  other  artists.  Great  paint- 
ers are  milder  in  their  judgments.  They  may,  indeed, 
be  gruff  and  evasive  when  they  are  in  the  creative  mood, 
preoccupied  with  themselves,  or  when  they  are  forced  to 
put  their  views  into  words.  Then,  awkward  perhaps 
or  scornful,  they  may  over-emphasize  an  opinion.  But 
this  is  not  their  way  in  the  pregnant  moments  when  they 
are  gathering  impressions  for  future  use.  Then  they 
are  content  with  the  humblest  material  that  presents 
itself.  It  almost  seems  as  though  they  lingered  longest 
in  front  of  the  most  commonplace  examples  of  their  art. 
Perhaps  the  only  way  they  can  learn  of  others  is  by 
using  what  they  gather  to  express  themselves,  and  are 
therefore  best  pleased  when  not  confronted  by  a  very 
lofty  personality. 

At  times  Rembrandt  studied  insignificant  painters 
like  Marten  van  Heemskerk,  a  mannerist  —  not  even 
a  refined  but  merely  a  clumsy  mannerist  —  who  has 

[164] 


p.  LASTMAN,  SUSANNA  AND  THE  ELDERS 

KAISER    FRIEDRICH    MUSEUM,    BERLIN 


i^A 


i;^?i 


REMBRANDT    (aFTER   LASTMAn),    SUSANNA   AND   THE    ELDERS 

PRINT   ROOM,    BERLIN 


REMBRANDT  S    REPRESENTATIONS    OF   SUSANNA 

hardly  any  importance  to-day  except  from  the  historical 
point  of  view.  Rembrandt's  teacher,  Pieter  Lastman, 
also  seems  to  us  to  have  little  individuality,  permanent 
though  the  impression  was  that  he  made  on  the  great 
painter. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  a  well-known  large  red- 
chalk  drawing  of  Rembrandt's,  in  the  possession  of 
Leon  Bonnat  at  Paris,  reproduces  a  picture  of  Pieter 
Lastman's,  now  in  private  ownership  in  Russia,  which 
was  famous  in  his  time.  A  comparison  of  the  large 
drawing  of  Susanna  in  the  Berlin  Print  Room  with  a 
picture  of  Lastman's  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum 
shows  a  similar  relationship,  being,  again,  an  almost 
exact  copy.  So  when  we  remember  that  in  the  Fried- 
rich  August  Collection  at  Dresden  there  is  a  third 
drawing  in  red  chalk  of  about  the  same  size,  after 
Leonardo's  Last  Supper,  it  seems  possible  that  all 
these  pages  formed  part  of  a  sketchbook  containing 
copies  by  Rembrandt  of  the  works  of  other  masters. 

It  is  not  a  thing  to  grieve  about  when  scientific  criti- 
cism traces  back  to  another  artist  some  theme  which 
has  been  thought  of  Rembrandt's  own  invention.  We 
admire  him  all  the  more  when  we  see  what  he  created 
with  the  aid  of  the  work  that  lay  before  him.  Put 
Lastman's  and  Rembrandt's  paintings  of  Susanna 
side  by  side  and  the  distance  between  them  seems 
immeasurable.  Psychological  intention,  material  em- 
bodiment, technique,  even  the  fashioning  of  the  figures 
as  regards  external  beauty  —  there  is  nothing  in  which 
Rembrandt  does  not  far  surpass  his  predecessor.  His 
delicate  charming  creature  with  her  shy  gestures  is  like 
thistledown  compared  to  Lastman's  broad  and  heavy 

[165] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

figure  sitting  in  a  bundle  of  clothes  on  a  misshapen 
stone  sphynx.  As  light  as  the  ripples  that  lave  her 
feet  she  slips  into  the  water,  the  supple  body  obeying  an 
agile  spirit,  while  with  Lastman's  Susanna  the  form 
responds  to  the  spirit  with  an  evident  indolence.  Rem- 
brandt's Susanna  is  in  strong  illumination  as  the 
centre  of  the  scheme  of  lighting;  everything  around 
her,  including  the  two  elders,  sinks  into  shadow.  With 
Lastman  the  graybeard  is  too  prominent.  He  stands 
like  an  Italian  draped  statue  but  blank  and  meaning- 
less, for  neither  in  the  structure  of  his  body  nor  in  the 
folds  of  his  garment  is  there  a  trace  of  beauty.  His 
face  is  almost  concealed,  and  so  is  that  of  the  other 
elder  in  which  we  might  expect  to  find  a  reflection  of  the 
action.  The  gestures  of  both  are  importunate  but  not 
at  all  expressive ;  one  trembles  with  excitement  —  to 
the  spectator  he  seems  almost  comical  —  while  the 
second,  likewise  draped  in  the  Italian  manner,  makes 
pathetic  signs  behind  Susanna's  back  although  she  can- 
not see  him.  Rembrandt's  elders,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  full  of  a  glowing  sensuality  that  speaks  from  the 
hasty  steps  with  which  they  come  forward,  and  from 
their  loose  and  bulging  garments.  How  repulsive  are 
their  faces  distorted  by  desire,  how  ardent  are  their 
glances,  almost  overpassing  the  goal  in  their  excitement, 
how  vulgarly  one  of  them  laughs  with  pinched  nostrils 
while  the  other  protrudes  his  lips  and  by  the  fist  that  he 
holds  up  to  his  mouth  betrays  the  import  of  his  whispers ! 
The  great  advance  in  plastic  feeling  that  marked  the 
thirty  years  between  Lastman's  painting  and  Rem- 
brandt's shows  also  in  the  different  way  of  indicating 
depth  in  the  picture.     Rembrandt's  foliage,  instead  of 

[166] 


-^ 


'h-^ 


'  '-4V.  •  1 


I  ; 


REMBRAXDT,    SUSANNA    AND    THE    ELDERS 
PRINT   ROOM,    BERLIN 


REMBRANDT,    SUSANNA   AND   THE    ELDERS 

PRINT    ROOM,    AMSTERDAM 


REMBRANDT  S    REPRESENTATIONS    OF    SUSANNA 

forming  a  flat  dark  wall  as  it  does  in  the  earlier  work, 
arches  into  broad  masses  defined  by  streams  of  light. 
In  place  of  the  rectangular  palace  with  its  lean  sil- 
houette a  heavily  massed  circular  building  soars  high 
above  the  splendid  terraces  that  encircle  it.  And  here 
the  three  figures  clearly  mark  three  successive  degrees  of 
distance,  while  with  Lastman  two  are  in  the  same  plane 
and  the  third  is  too  much  in  shadow  to  help  much  in  the 
indication  of  depth. 

It  is  true  that  Lastman's  picture  bears  witness  to 
well-trained  powers  and  an  upright  sturdy  spirit,  but 
they  are  shallow  powers,  a  shallow  spirit,  as  compared 
with  the  sagacity,  the  brilliancy,  the  profound  intelh- 
gence  of  Rembrandt.  Thus  all  of  Lastman's  pictures 
dwindle  to  insignificance  if  contrasted  even  with  the 
awkward  juvenile  essays  of  his  great  pupil.  They  may 
serve  us  as  milestones  with  which  to  measure  the  long 
road  that  from  this  point  of  departure  Rembrandt 
traversed. 

As  regards  his  portrayals  of  Susanna,  the  first 
step  is  marked  by  the  red-chalk  drawing  at  Berlin. 
In  spite  of  the  rapidity  with  which  it  must  have  been 
done,  it  betters  the  original  at  more  than  one  point. 
In  particular  the  bearing  of  the  hesitating  elder  has 
grown  more  dignified;  he  is  hoping  to  make  an  impres- 
sion by  a  convincing  display  of  self-restraint.  Su- 
sanna's glance  is  now  almost  devoid  of  fear  and  is  much 
more  intense  and  repellent.  The  second  elder  is 
more  prominent,  the  mantle  has  fallen  from  his  face, 
and  he  seems  to  be  grasping  Susanna  by  the  hair. 
Were  the  sketch  carried  farther  the  expression  of  his 
face,  important  as  explanatory  of  the  action,  would  be 

[167] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

more  clearly  marked  than  it  is  with  Lastman.  A 
change  in  a  subordinate  feature  of  the  composition  also 
shows  the  desire  to  give  the  action  more  point:  with 
Lastman  both  the  peacocks  sit  quietly  on  the  branches ; 
with  Rembrandt  one  of  them  flutters  up  as  the  old  man 
comes  too  near  him. 

A  pen -drawing  of  about  the  year  1635,  which  is  also 
in  the  Berlin  Print  Room,  where  almost  all  of  Rem- 
brandt's studies  of  Susanna  chance  to  be  gathered 
together,  marks  a  second  step  away  from  Lastman. 
In  the  action  as  well  as  in  the  penstrokes  it  reveals 
the  vehement  agitation  of  this  period  of  the  artist's 
life.  Susanna  is  crouching  in  terror  and  shielding 
breast  and  body  with  her  hands,  for  the  elders  are 
close  upon  her.  Intending  to  seize  her,  one  of  them  has 
set  his  foot  on  her  stone  seat  but  draws  back  as  she 
impetuously  turns  her  head.  The  other  is  pointing 
excitedly  over  her  head  into  the  distance  —  a  gesture 
which  is  not  clearly  connected  with  the  action  but  is 
intended,  perhaps,  merely  to  enhance  the  effect  of  Su- 
sanna's hasty  movement.  She  is,  indeed,  still  seated 
with  her  feet  together  as  in  Lastman's  picture,  but 
in  the  elasticity  of  her  body  we  read  the  impulse  to 
rise. 

The  same  idea  is  expressed  more  fully  in  the  picture 
in  the  Mauritshuis  at  the  Hague,  painted  most  prob- 
ably in  1637.  Susanna  is  advancing  her  feet  for  flight 
as  she  thrusts  them  into  her  slippers,  and  at  the  same 
time  is  trying  to  screen  her  body.  The  rendering  of 
the  movement  that  indicates  this  double  intention  pro- 
claims the  power  of  Rembrandt's  art,  for  it  bears 
witness  to  the  great  freedom  of  spirit  that  he  bestowed 

[168] 


REMBRANDT,    SUSANNA 

MAURITSHUIS,    THE    HAGUE 


REMBRANDT  S    REPRESENTATIONS   OF   SUSANNA 

upon  his  figures.  Such  differentiations  would  have 
been  impossible  to  Lastman.  Characteristic  of  Rem- 
brandt again  is  a  detail  which,  hindering  the  action, 
emphasizes  the  emotional  disturbance  —  the  failure  of 
one  of  the  feet  to  find  its  way  into  the  slipper.* 

In  the  presence  of  the  original  of  this  picture  it  may 
often  have  been  remarked  that  the  treatment  of  the 
foliage  to  the  right  of  Susanna  with  its  cabbage-like 
forms,  and  of  the  garments  with  their  crisped  and  wavy 
folds,  conspicuously  recalls  Lastman's  work.  This  re- 
semblance, exceptional  at  this  period  of  Rembrandt's 
career,  is  explained  by  our  knowledge  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  recently  been  studying  one  of  his  master's  most 
important  canvases. 

All  the  rest  of  Rembrandt's  representations  of  Su- 
sanna at  the  Bath,  with  the  exception  of  one  drawing 
of  later  date,  group  themselves  around  the  Berlin  pic- 
ture. They  include  two  studies  in  oil  with  the  single 
figure  of  Susanna,  one  of  which  is  in  the  Louvre  and 
the  other  in  Bonnat's  possession,  and  two  drawings  — 
a  crayon-drawing  at  Berlin,!  likewise  portraying  Su- 
sanna, and  a  detailed  composition  in  pen-and-ink  at 

*In  a  similar  way  the  St.  Jerome  in  Ecstasy  in  an  early  work,  which  we  know  only 
in  the  print  by  Vlietsch,  is  losing  one  slipper,  and  so,  in  the  picture  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, is  the  Prodigal  Son  as  he  begs  his  father  for  forgiveness.  The  creators  of 
the  modem  psychological  novel  are  not  the  first  to  observe  that  at  critical  moments 
in  the  life  of  the  soul  the  attention  may  be  focussed  upon  unworthy  trifles. 

fin  my  opinion  Hofstede  de  Groot  in  his  catalogue  of  Rembrandt's  drawings,  and 
Bode  in  the  third  volume  of  his  book  on  Rembrandt,  date  these  drawings  ten  years 
too  early  (about  1635-37).  The  turn  of  the  head  and  the  position  of  the  back 
correspond  with  the  picture  at  Berlin,  and  the  model  wears  the  same  cap  as  in  the 
studies  in  oil  at  Paris.  About  the  year  1645  Rembrandt  commonly  used  this  black 
crayon  for  his  drawings,  as  in  the  sketches  for  the  young  girl  at  Dulwich  College 
and  for  the  old  woman  at  St.  Petersburg,  in  studies  of  beggars,  and  in  landscape 
sketches. 

[169] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

Amsterdam.*  As  Herr  Hofstede  de  Groot  kindly 
informs  me,  there  are  furthermore  two  studies,  un- 
known to  me,  for  one  of  the  Jews  in  the  Berhn  picture  — 
a  sketch  in  oils  owned  by  Leon  Nardus  of  Suresnes  near 
Paris  and  a  drawing  in  the  Heseltine  Collection  at 
London. 

In  painting  the  Berlin  picture  Rembrandt  probably 
had  the  earlier  one,  the  one  now  at  the  Hague,  under  his 
eyes,  for  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  otherwise  he  could 
have  reproduced  the  pose  so  exactly,  especially  as  regards 
the  lower  part  of  the  body.  But  the  type  of  face  has 
changed.  Instead  of  the  elongated  type  recalling  Sas- 
kia  we  have  now  the  rounder,  more  childlike  girl's  face 
that  begins  to  appear  in  Rembrandt's  work  somewhere 
about  the  year  1647  —  the  type  of  Hendrickje.f  The 
whole  conception  has  become  tenderer  and  more 
charming  as  appears  if  we  compare,  for  example,  the 
Berlin  sketch  for  the  picture  at  the  Hague  with  the 
very  delightful  childlike  composition  at  Amsterdam 
which,  dating  from  about  1645,  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  study  for  the  Berlin  picture.  Instead  of  a  bold  out- 
break of  gross  passion  we  have  an  eager  but  almost 
harmless  pursuit,  a  game  between  two  comically  elo- 
quent old  men  and  a  child  whose  hair,  loosened  in  her 
fright,  falls  in  thin  strands  as  though  it  were  wet. 

In    both    of   the    pictures,    because    of   the    slower 

*The  very  elaborate  drawing  at  Budapest  (reproduced  in  the  Piiblikation  der  Al- 
bertinazeichnungen  and  recently  in  Graul,  Fiinfzig  Handzeichnungen  Rembrandt's, 
Leipzig,  1906)  is  certainly  not  an  original,  but  is  probably  a  pupil's  copy  from  the 
pictiu-e,  and  was  therefore  quite  rightly  rejected  by  Hofstede  de  Groot. 

fl  stiU  adhere  to  the  belief  I  have  already  expressed  that  by  this  time  Hendrickje 
was  living  with  Rembrandt  and  influencing  the  type  of  his  female  figures.  Com- 
pare also  in  this  connection  Charles  Sedelmeyer's  essay  of  1912  on  the  Woman 
Taken  in  Adultery  of  the  Weber  Collection. 

[170] 


REMBRANDT  S   REPRESENTATIONS    OF   SUSANNA 

process  of  painting  in  oil,  the  conception  has  grown 
quieter  and  psychologically  more  complicated.  At  the 
same  time  it  has  grown  less  naive,  for  the  fact  that 
Susanna  is  looking  out  from  the  picture  indicates  a 
thought  of  the  spectator.  By  this  means  Rembrandt 
avoided  that  over-abrupt  turning  of  Susanna's  head 
toward  the  elders  which  had  not  been  successful  with 
Lastman  and  which  has  a  touch  of  exaggeration  in  his 
own  first  drawing.  Perhaps,  too,  Rembrandt  was  no 
longer  pleased  with  the  rather  heavy  line  of  the  back 
and  shoulders  in  the  earlier  picture,  for  he  begins  to 
work  at  it  in  the  studies  for  the  picture  at  Berlin.  In 
the  crayon-drawing  and  in  both  the  Paris  studies  in  oil 
he  pays  particular  attention  to  the  articulation  of  the 
arm  at  the  shoulder,  to  the  back,  and  to  the  muscles  of 
the  neck  at  the  turn  of  the  head ;  the  study  in  the  Louvre 
is  especially  careful  in  regard  to  the  left  foot  and  the 
arrangement  of  the  drapery  which  forms  along  the 
back  a  fold  ready  for  the  elder's  grasp;  and  the  sketch 
owned  by  Bonnat  is  concerned  with  the  facial  expres- 
sion. As  a  result,  the  line  of  Susanna's  back  is  more 
vital  in  the  later  than  in  the  earlier  painting  and  wins 
an  added  grace  from  the  concave  curves  at  the  neck 
and  the  hip.  The  last  trace  of  materiality  that  clung 
to  the  figure  has  disappeared. 

Once  again,  about  ten  years  later,  Rembrandt  re- 
turned in  a  passing  way  to  the  same  subject,  in  a  pen- 
drawing  now  at  Berlin.  As  is  usual  in  the  works  of 
his  old  age,  he  no  longer  seeks  for  new  subjects.  He 
is  content  to  simplify  or,  if  you  will,  to  repeat  in  a 
blunter  fashion  what  he  had  thought  out  at  an  earlier 
time.     In  the  grouping  of  the  figures  and  the  attitude 

[171] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

of  each  of  them  there  is  a  close  likeness  to  the  Berlin 
picture,  but  the  subtile  interpretation  of  the  essence  of 
the  theme  has  been  foregone  and  the  mystical  glamour 
has  vanished.  There  is  now  no  pleasant  hollow  among 
verdant  branches,  no  soft  murmur  of  foliage,  no  radi- 
ance of  scattered  light.  Broad  clusters  of  leafage  con- 
verge from  the  two  sides,  forbidding  to  the  eye  any 
glimpse  into  the  distance.  The  expression  of  sensuality 
is  more  pronounced.  The  figures  stand  closer  together 
and  nearer  to  the  spectator;  they  are  larger  in  propor- 
tion to  the  space  and  their  attitudes  are  less  complex, 
being  reduced  to  a  couple  of  strongly  angular  move- 
ments. Accessories  are  renounced,  the  composition 
that  encloses  the  figures  on  the  right  hand  and  the  left 
is  of  narrower  shape,  and  the  contrast  between  the 
nude  female  figure  and  the  architecture  that  enframes 
the  group  in  a  broad  symmetrical  fashion  is  more 
strongly  marked.  Nor  does  Susanna  now  slip  away, 
light-footed,  from  her  pursuers.  She  is  standing  up  to 
her  knees  in  the  water;  escape  is  impossible. 

We  can  hardly  help  wondering  at  the  consistent  way 
in  which,  during  so  long  a  period,  Rembrandt's  imagi- 
nation worked  upon  this  series  of  representations  of 
Susanna.  Between  one  and  another  of  them  there  lay 
hundreds  of  sketches  and  completed  works  inspired  by 
different  themes  and  ideas,  and  only  in  a  single  instance 
can  we  perhaps  plausibly  assume  that  the  artist  had 
an  earlier  version  of  his  subject  actually  under  his  eyes. 
We  wonder  whether  at  other  times  he  may  have  re- 
membered with  distinctness  one  of  the  sketches  done 
several  years  before.  But  it  seems  more  probable  that 
his  nature   remained  from  first  to   last  essentially  so 

[  172  ] 


h 


4^ 


T  ^ 


REMBRANDT,    SUSANNA    AND    THE    ELDERS 

PRINT    ROOM,    BERLIN 


Rembrandt's  representations  of  susanna 

unchanged  that  the  same  subject  always  suggested  to 
his  imagination  a  picture  of  fundamentally  the  same 
kind.  In  truth,  Rembrandt's  whole  development,  which 
seems  to  us  so  rich,  was  simply  a  development  in  the 
outward  shaping  of  ideas  which  had  possessed  him  from 
the  very  beginning. 


[173] 


X 

PICTURES  BY  RUBENS  IN  AMERICA 

RUBENS  is  less  well  represented  in  American 
collections  than  the  other  great  masters  of  the 
^  seventeenth  century  —  than  Rembrandt,  Frans 
Hals,  or  Vermeer,  than  Velasquez  or  van  Dyck.  I  have 
seen  about  forty  of  his  pictures,  some  twenty  of  them 
sketches  and  most  of  them  unpublished,  but  this  is  a 
very  small  number  compared  with  those  preserved 
in  Europe  where  there  must  be  almost  a  thousand. 
America  has  now  about  one  eighth  of  the  pictures  of 
Rembrandt  (about  eighty  in  a  total  of  six  hundred  and 
sixty)  and  of  Velasquez  (about  twelve  in  one  hundred) ; 
it  has  one  sixth  of  those  by  Frans  Hals  (about  fifty  in 
three  hundred)  and  almost  one  fourth  of  Vermeer's 
(about  eight  in  thirty-seven);  and  if  it  has  relatively 
fewer  of  van  Dyck's  (about  forty  in  a  total  of  eight 
hundred),  the  level  of  excellence  is  all  the  higher,  espe- 
cially in  the  pictures  of  his  Genoese  period. 

While  the  great  private  collections  of  America  long 
since  admitted  van  Dyck,  they  open  their  doors  more 
hesitatingly  to  his  great  master.  In  the  Alt  man,  Frick, 
and  Huntington  Collections  in  New  York  Rubens  is 

[174] 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS    IN   AMERICA 

not  represented  at  all.  Mrs.  Gardner  of  Boston  has 
only  one  portrait,  Mr.  Widener  of  Philadelphia  only  a 
single  sketch.  The  laudable  exception  is  Mr.  Johnson 
of  Philadelphia  who  has  a  special  liking  for  Rubens' 
studies  and  owns  almost  one  fourth  of  the  works  from 
his  hand  that  have  thus  far  crossed  the  ocean.  As  in 
general  the  great  collectors  still  show  so  little  interest 
in  Rubens,  small  examples  are  more  numerous  than 
large  and  finished  pictures  intended  for  a  church  or  a 
palace.  But  this  is  not  a  matter  for  regret  to  any  one 
who  wishes  to  speak  of  them,  for  by  common  consent 
Rubens'  sketches  reveal  the  very  essence  of  his  genius. 
To  express  these  new-born  ideas,  which  are  conceived 
in  the  joyous  mood  of  a  discoverer  and  do  not  seem  to 
ask  for  a  more  explicit  rendering,  Rubens  used  canvas 
and  brush,  whereas  Rembrandt,  whose  work  tends  more 
toward  monochrome,  generally  sketched  his  composi- 
tions with  a  pen  on  paper.  Such  drawings  in  crayon 
and  in  pen-and-ink  as  Rubens  did  produce  are  almost 
all  careful  preparatory  studies  for  certain  parts  of  his 
large  paintings.  Therefore  his  sketches  in  oil  hold  the 
same  place  in  his  work  that  is  held  in  Rembrandt's 
by  the  compositions  that  we  find  among  his  drawings. 
And  the  same  difficulties  attend  a  study  of  the  one 
group  and  the  other.  We  might  suppose  that  it  would 
be  particularly  hard  to  imitate  great  artists  in  their 
hasty  sketches,  but  Rubens'  sketches  in  oil,  like  Rem- 
brandt's drawings,  were  so  cleverly  copied  by  his  pu- 
pils that  their  transcripts,  unless  betrayed  by  a  direct 
comparison  with  the  originals,  might  usually  be  mis- 
taken for  them.  Three  or  four  instances  of  this  simi- 
larity occur  in  the   series   representing   the   story   of 

[175] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

Achilles,  of  which  I  shall  speak  again  on  a  later  page; 
the  first  studies,  small  in  size,  recur  two  or  three  times, 
and  there  is  also  a  series  of  rather  larger  ones  which 
are  likewise  so  broadly  and  sketchily  handled  that  if 
the  originals  were  unknown  we  should  hardly  think  of 
them  as  done  in  part  by  pupils. 

In  considering  the  works  by  Rubens  in  American  col- 
lections we  may  group  together  the  pictures  of  the  first 
half  of  his  career,  from  about  1603  to  1620.  The  most 
important  of  the  finished  compositions  of  this  period 
are  the  double  portrait  owned  by  JNIrs.  Robert  D. 
Evans  of  Boston  and  the  Wolf  and  Fox  Hunt  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  at  New  York,  but  a  few 
sketches  and  large  pictures  are  of  earUer  date  than  these. 

The  Marriage  of  St.  Catherine  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  Rodman  Wanamaker  of  Philadelphia,  known 
through  the  reproduction  in  Rosenberg's  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  is  thought  to  be  the  earliest  Rubens  in  America. 
Waagen  was  the  first  to  point  out  that  this  rather  timid 
piece  of  work  must  date  from  the  end  of  Rubens'  Italian 
period,  from  about  the  year  1604.  Dr.  Gliick  attrib- 
utes it,  probably  with  justice,  to  one  of  Rubens'  pupils, 
Jan  Boeckhorst.  I  have  not  as  yet  had  access  to  the 
picture. 

A  Crucifixion  owned  by  ^Ir.  Johnson  brings  us  to  the 
time  of  that  great  unfolding  of  the  artist's  powers  in 
official  ecclesiastical  paintings  which  brought  him  world- 
wide fame,  the  time  of  the  Raising  of  the  Cross 
and  the  Descent  from  the  Cross  in  the  cathedral  at 
Antwerp.  Mr.  Johnson's  picture,  painted  about  1610 
and  perhaps  not  entirely  by  Rubens'  own  hand,  is  a 
variant  of  the  oft-recurring  composition  with  a  simpler 

[176] 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS    IN    AMERICA 

and  more  sympathetically  studied  landscape.  Althougli 
the  dramatic  success  of  such  scenes  merits  the  highest 
admiration,  their  passionate  appeal  to  the  spectator  is 
so  undisguised  that  they  can  hardly  stir  his  deepest 
emotions. 

In  a  sketch  in  the  same  collection,  showing  Paul  and 
Barnabas  at  Lystra,  and  probably  painted  about  1612, 
the  pagan  priests  are  trying  to  prevent  the  followers  of 
Christ  from  denouncing  their  idolatrous  rites.  The 
varied  play  of  gesture  in  this  row  of  similar  figures  and 
the  great  diversity  of  their  attitudes,  arranged  though 
they  are  with  their  heads  at  the  same  level,  remind  one 
of  the  Woman  Taken  in  Adultery,  at  Brussels,  and 
the  Diogenes,  at  Frankfort.  Characteristic  of  the 
style  of  this  period  are  the  tight  contours  of  the  heads, 
the  heavy  elongated  folds  of  the  draperies,  and  certain 
masculine  types  such  as  the  high  priest  and  the  bearded 
old  man  with  bent  head  in  the  centre  of  the  composi- 
tion. The  sketch,  which  has  been  somewhat  repainted, 
is  done  chiefly  in  brown  slightly  tinged  with  green  and 
yellow  in  the  illumined  parts. 

To  realize  Rubens'  marvellous  versatility  we  may 
compare  these  studies  with  one,  a  little  later  in  date, 
of  the  Childhood  of  Romulus  and  Remus,  also  in  Mr. 
Johnson's  collection.  Here  there  is  nothing  of  the 
conventional  ecclesiasticism  of  the  Crucifixions  and 
nothing  of  the  impassioned  yet  monumental  action  of 
the  scene  at  Lystra.  The  buoyant  spirit  of  the  artist 
has  turned  a  cold  allegorical  theme,  the  glorification  of 
the  founding  of  Rome,  into  a  delightful  genre-picture 
with  a  landscape  setting.  Roma,  the  young  mother, 
is  trying  in  vain  to  keep  both  her  sturdy  struggling 

[177] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

boys  on  her  lap;  one  of  them  is  clambering  up  to  his 
father,  Mars  arrayed  for  battle,  who  has  plucked  a 
fruit  from  the  tree  for  him,  while  the  other  leans  back 
toward  the  wolf  that  gently  submits  to  be  stroked.  A 
shepherd,  a  satyr,  and  Father  Tiber,  lying  at  his  ease 
among  the  reeds,  take  pleasure  in  the  charming  scene. 
It  is  a  masterpiece,  this  study,  in  the  art  of  grouping. 
Each  figure  is  in  natural  and  animated  relations  with 
the  others,  and  the  artist's  inexhaustible  dramatic 
power,  which  can  never  let  his  figures  come  to  rest,  has 
given  them  here  a  delightful  eloquence.  The  joyous 
mood  of  the  sunny  landscape  is  reflected  in  the  spring- 
like colours  of  the  costumes,  a  tender  blue  and  a  pale 
rose-colour  standing  out  against  the  thinly  brushed-in 
brown  of  the  background.  Only  one  picture  by  Ru- 
bens of  Romulus  and  Remus  has  hitherto  been  known, 
the  familiar  one,  dating  from  about  1607,  in  the  Capitol 
at  Rome.  The  present  study  may  be  identical  with 
the  sketch  mentioned  in  the  inventory  of  the  Lunden 
family,  who  were  kinsmen  of  Rubens,  and  perhaps  also 
with  the  work  that  in  1781  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  saw 
in  the  house  of  Danoot,  a  banker  at  Brussels. 

An  authentic  work,  probably  of  the  year  1615,  is  the 
Bestowal  of  the  Keys,  formerly  owned  by  Mr.  W.  R. 
Bacon  and  more  recently  by  Blakeslee  the  art  dealer 
in  New  York  —  a  picture  that  was  shown  to  the  Euro- 
pean public  at  the  Brussels  Exhibition  a  few  years  ago. 
In  the  solid  effect  of  the  red  and  yellow  hues  and  in  the 
heavy  handling  it  resembles  the  Doubting  Thomas 
at  Antwerp  and  the  Penitent  Sinners  in  the  Presence  of 
Christ  at  Munich,  which  are  similar  in  composition  and 
were  painted  at  the  same  time. 

[  178  ] 


RUBENS,    PORTRAIT    OF    A    MAN    AND    HIS    WIFE 

COLLECTION    OF    MRS.    R.    D.    EVANS,    BOSTON 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS    IN   AMERICA 

To  this  time  must  also  belong  the  striking  double 
portrait  owned  by  Mrs.  Robert  D.  Evans  of  Boston. 
Here  the  difficult  problem  of  uniting  two  persons  in 
one  picture  is  solved  by  the  use  of  a  diagonal  arrange- 
ment, frequently  employed  by  Rubens  and  also  by 
Rembrandt,  which  comports  with  the  preference  for 
asymmetry  that  characterized  the  Baroque  period. 
The  woman  is  seated,  the  man  is  standing  behind  her, 
and  the  two  figures  are  bound  together  by  the  light 
that,  falling  on  both  the  heads,  is  carried  in  a  slanting 
direction  to  the  woman's  bodice  and  hands.  Com- 
bining in  a  rare  degree  the  careful  rendering  of  details 
and  a  personal  succinct  manner  of  presentation,  Rubens 
has  portrayed  the  inmost  nature  of  the  two  simple 
burghers  —  the  man  w^ith  the  frank,  naively  sensuous 
temperament,  and  the  blooming  young  woman  with  the 
roguish  smile  and  the  enticing  upward  glance  which 
van  Dyck,  adding  a  touch  of  theatrical  subtilty,  so 
often  gave  his  sitters.  The  straightforward  realism 
of  the  picture  and  the  smoothness  of  the  handling  re- 
call the  best  works  of  CorneHs  de  Vos,  while  in  breadth 
of  style  and  in  the  vitahty  of  the  figures  it  reminds  us 
of  Jordaens,  although  both  these  painters  lacked  the 
keenness  of  perception  and  the  highly  intellectual 
power  of  characterization  revealed  by  the  expressive 
heads.  Even  though  a  portrait  was  in  question  Jor- 
daens, to  whom  this  one  has  sometimes  been  attributed, 
would  have  been  more  attracted  by  the  externals  than 
by  the  spirit  of  his  theme,  as  is  proved  by  his  master- 
piece in  portraiture,  his  own  Hkeness  in  the  Uffizi. 
Here  we  have  the  same  type,  but  in  comparison  with 
the  head  in  Rubens'  picture  the  features  lack  nobihty, 

[179] 


THE   ART   OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

the  mouth  is  coarser,  the  eyes  are  duller.  Comparing, 
again,  the  woman's  head  with  the  one  in  the  Family 
of  Jordaens  at  Madrid,  I  am  tempted  to  believe  that 
the  double  portrait  represents  Jordaens  and  his  wife. 
If  so,  it  must  have  been  painted  in  1616,  the  year  when 
Jordaens  married  Catherine  Noort,  and  is  a  beautiful 
memorial  of  the  friendship  between  the  two  comrades 
in  the  studio  of  Adam  Noort^  Rubens'  teacher  and  Jor- 
daens' father-in-law. 

The  large  Wolf  and  Fox  Hunt  in  the  Metropoli- 
tan Museum  takes  us  from  the  artist's  intimate  sur- 
roundings to  that  phase  of  his  activity  in  which  he  met 
the  requirements  of  foreign  aristocrats. 

While  his  great  devotional  altar-pieces  established 
his  fame  in  the  high  ecclesiastical  circles  of  Flanders, 
the  large  hunting  scenes  produced  between  1612  and 
1616  seem  to  have  carried  it  into  the  aristocratic  cir- 
cles of  foreign  lands,  and  especially  of  England.  As  is 
well  known,  the  Wolf  Hunt  of  the  New  York  Mu- 
seum, which  has  been  published  several  times  in  recent 
years,  came  from  Lord  Ashburton's  collection  and  is 
considered  a  replica  of  a  still  larger  canvas  that  the 
Duke  of  Aerschot  obtained  from  Rubens  and  that  is 
thought  to  be  lost.  A  letter,  published  by  Rooses,* 
from  the  agent  Toby  Mathew  to  Sir  Dudley  Carle  ton, 
who  was  for  a  time  ambassador  of  England  at  the 
Hague,  tells  us  more  about  this  larger  picture.  Carle- 
ton  had  caused  an  offer  for  the  first  version  of  the  Wolf 
Hunt  to  be  submitted  to  Rubens  who  refused  it  as  too 
low.  The  Duke  of  Aerschot  had  then  got  ahead  of  the 
Englishman   and   had   paid   the   artist's   price,   about 

*rwuvre  de  P.  P.  Rubens.    Vol.  II,  p.  93. 

[180] 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS    IN   AMERICA 

£100.  Thereupon  Mathew  urged  Sir  Dudley  not  to 
be  dissatisfied,  proposing  that  he  should  secure  a  some- 
what smaller  replica  which  could  be  had  for  the  sum 
he  was  willing  to  pay.  Rubens,  he  said,  had  seen 
that  the  first  picture  was  too  large,  that  it  could  be 
hung  only  in  the  apartments  of  a  great  palace,  and, 
because  of  his  liking  for  the  subject,  had  painted  another 
which  measured  only  7  by  10  feet  whereas  the  first 
measured  between  11  and  12  by  18  feet.  Apparently, 
Sir  Dudley  Carleton  obtained  this  second  canvas  which 
Rooses  has  identified  with  the  one  in  the  possession 
of  Lord  Methuen.  It  does  not  seem  very  probable 
that  in  addition  to  these  two  pictures  Rubens  painted 
a  third,  of  about  the  same  size  as  the  first,  and  that  all 
knowledge  of  it  has  been  lost.  It  is  easier  to  suppose 
that  the  New  York  picture  is  the  one  acquired  by  the 
Duke  of  Aerschot.  The  difference  in  dimensions  evi- 
dently prevented  Rooses  from  so  deciding.  But  if  we 
compare  the  New  York  picture  with  Soutman's  en- 
graving we  see  that  it  has  been  considerably  cut  down  on 
all  sides,  and  especially  at  top  and  bottom;  and  if  we  add 
the  missing  strips  we  have  a  canvas  of  about  10  by 
16 J  feet,  which  is  not  very  far  from  the  dimensions  given 
by  Toby  Mathew.  Moreover,  technically  considered, 
the  New  York  picture  is  all  of  a  piece,  and  this  confirms 
the  supposition  that  it  was  the  first,  for  the  original 
rendering  of  the  subject  would  be  much  less  likely 
than  the  third  to  show  collaboration  in  any  marked 
degree.  Such  a  threefold  division  of  the  work  as  has 
sometimes  been  assumed,  giving  the  animals  to  Snyders, 
the  landscape  to  Wilders,  and  the  rest  to  Rubens,  is 
hardly   credible.     It   is   unlikely   that   Rubens   asked 

[181] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

Wilders'  aid  for  the  little  stretch  of  landscape,  very 
freely  painted,  that  he  himself  could  have  brushed-in 
in  a  few  minutes.  And  neither  in  action  nor  in  tech- 
nique do  the  animals  suggest  Snyders;  on  the  contrary, 
they  show  how  greatly,  even  in  this  direction,  Rubens 
excelled  him. 

If  we  must  assume  the  collaboration  of  pupils,  the 
most  plausible  supposition  is  that,  after  Rubens  had 
reproduced  his  sketch  at  full  size,  he  left  the  general  exe- 
cution to  his  assistants  but  finally  went  over  the  whole 
thing  with  his  own  hand.  This  would  explain  why  the 
general  effect  of  the  picture  is  rather  hard  and  why, 
nevertheless,  we  can  everywhere  trace  the  brushstrokes 
of  the  master  himself.  Naturally,  the  final  retouching 
by  Rubens  precludes  any  attempt  to  separate  the  work 
of  different  hands.  In  style  the  picture  is  very  like 
the  Wild  Boar  Hunt  at  Marseilles,  also  engraved  by 
Soutman,  in  which  we  find  again  the  type  of  the  horn- 
blower  and  of  the  lady  on  horseback. 

It  seems  as  though  Rubens  had  determined  to  por- 
tray all  the  different  ways  of  hunting  wild  beasts  that 
were  practised  in  Europe  or,  according  to  hearsay,  in 
the  Orient.  Besides  the  wild  bear  and  the  wolf  hunts 
there  are  well-known  lion  and  bear  hunts,  stag  hunts, 
crocodile  and  hippopotamus  hunts.  And  to  these  may 
be  added  a  hitherto  unknown  sketch  of  a  steer  hunt, 
owned  by  Ehrich,  the  New  York  art  dealer,  which  is 
probably  a  reproduction  of  the  smaller  study  that  was 
sold  at  the  Sedelmeyer  auction  in  1907. 

This  sketch  is  composed  like  a  frieze  within  a  long  and 
narrow  frame,  a  shape  for  which  Rubens  often  showed  a 
preference  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life.     Probably  it 

[182] 


PICTURES   BY   RUBENS    IN   AMERICA 

dates  from  about  1635,  but  in  view  of  its  subject  it  may 
best  be  considered  in  connection  with  the  other  hunting 
pieces.  Such  scenes  of  combat  as  these  that  Rubens 
created,  scenes  so  absohitely  convincing  in  their  dra- 
matic power,  have  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  European 
art.  In  this  steer  hunt  the  movement  of  the  animals, 
rushing  headlong  at  their  topmost  speed,  is  rendered 
with  the  same  keenness  of  observation  that  we  find  in 
oriental  art,  and,  moreover,  the  action,  which  in  ori- 
ental art  is  almost  always  in  one  direction,  or  is  sus- 
tained by  symmetrically  advancing  groups,  here  brings 
into  equilibrium  two  counter-movements  of  equal  force, 
the  participants  coming  from  opposite  directions  and 
crashing  together  in  the  centre  in  a  wild  medley  where 
the  eye  can  but  slowly  discover  the  organic  relation- 
ships of  the  component  parts.  The  dramatic  content 
corresponds  exactly  to  this  external  arrangement.  It 
is  an  ever-renewed  surprise  to  find  that  the  fury  which 
produced  such  a  turmoil  was  not  miscalculated.  The 
dramatic  crisis  in  a  hunting  scene  is  usually  the  mo- 
ment when  the  bold  hunters  are  in  greatest  danger  from 
the  wounded  beast  yet  their  victory  is  nevertheless 
foreseen.  In  the  present  picture  the  steer  has  attacked 
in  his  blind  rage  the  horse  of  one  of  the  hunters  who, 
pale  of  face  and  scarcely  able  to  hold  his  lance,  is  falling 
from  the  saddle;  but  the  fatal  stroke  has  already  been 
planted  between  the  horns  of  the  bull,  and  the  superior 
strength  of  the  assailants  who,  on  foot  and  on  horse- 
back and  helped  by  their  dogs,  press  in  with  lance  and 
sword,  leaves  the  outcome  in  no  doubt. 

Furthermore,  we  have    a    study  of    the  Adoration 
of  the  Kings,  in  the    collection  of  Sir  William  Van 

[  183  ] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

Home  at  Montreal,  and  two  studies  of  the  heads  of  the 
oldest  two  of  the  Eangs,  owned  by  Mrs.  Charles  H. 
Senff  of  New  York,  which  were  all  painted  at  the  end  of 
the  second  decade  of  the  century.  The  studies  of  heads 
were  last  seen  in  Europe  in  1881,  in  the  Wilson  Col- 
lection,* which  contained  also  the  third  King  of  the 
same  series,  a  study  that  was  lent  to  the  Brussels  Ex- 
hibition by  Heer  van  G elder  of  Uccle.  These  three 
pictures  prove  that,  although  the  current  belief  that 
finished  reproductions  of  parts  of  Rubens'  well-laiown 
compositions  are  not  his  own  work  is  usually  correct, 
sometimes  it  is  mistaken.  In  the  year  1618,  as  Rooses 
discovered,  Rubens  made  separate  replicas  of  the  heads 
of  the  Three  Kings  in  his  great  altar-piece  at  Mechlin 
for  the  three  sons  of  Balthasar  Moretus,  in  whose  family 
the  eldest  three  sons  were  always  named  for  the  Three 
Kings.  The  identity  of  the  New  York  pictures  and  the 
one  at  Uccle  with  these  replicas  is  established  beyond  a 
doubt  by  the  vigour  of  the  handling  and  the  freedom  with 
which  details  of  the  Mechlin  altar-piece  are  altered. 

On  the  other  hand.  Sir  William  Van  Home's  sketch 
of  the  Adoration  of  the  Kings,  likewise  autographic, 
is  a  preparatory  study  for  a  large  altar-piece.  In 
general  it  corresponds  with  the  main  group  in  the  pic- 
ture of  the  same  name  at  Munich,  painted  in  1619  for 
the  Count  Palatine  Wolfgang  Wilhelm  von  Neuburg. 
The  divergencies  prove  that  it  is  not  a  copy  but  an 
initial  version,  and  in  vitality  of  effect  it  surpasses 
the  altar-piece  which  was  executed  for  the  most  part 
by  pupils. 

Rubens  once  wrote:  "I  realize  that  I  am  by  nature 

*M.  Rooses,  L'ceuvre  de  P.  P.  Rubens.  Vol.  I,  p.  172. 

[184] 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS   IN   AMERICA 

more  inclined  to  produce  very  large  works  than  little 
curiosities. "  He  must  have  known  in  which  direction 
his  ability  was  greatest.  Yet  he  sometimes  ventured 
with  singular  success  into  regions  outside  of  his  true 
field,  as  when  he  collaborated  with  Pieter  Breughel 
the  Elder,  a  painter  w^hose  concern  was  precisely  with 
*' little  curiosities."  It  seems  as  though  an  external 
impulse  may  sometimes  stimulate  the  powers  of  great 
artists.  For  example,  neither  Frans  Hals  nor  van  Dyck 
often  created  anything  more  perfect  than  the  little 
portraits  that  they  prepared  for  the  engraver's  use  on  a 
scale  to  which  they  were  unaccustomed.  So,  too,  the  art 
of  Rubens  seems  to  be  brought  to  a  focus  in  the  small 
pictures  he  painted  with  Breughel,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  which  is  in  America,  the  Feast  of  the  Gods 
in  the  collection  of  Mrs.  Samuel  Untermyer  at  Yonkers 
near  New  York. 

We  are  not  very  well  pleased  to-day  by  the  idea  of  a 
collaboration  between  artists  as  dissimilar  as  Rubens 
and  Breughel.  We  have  a  keener  desire  than  prevailed 
in  their  time  to  understand  the  personality  of  a  painter, 
and,  easily  finding  the  line  between  the  handiwork  of 
these  two,  we  are  tempted  to  draw  comparisons.  The 
result  is  unfavourable  to  Breughel  who  holds  about  the 
same  place  in  relation  to  Rubens  as  does  Gerard  Dou 
in  relation  to  Rembrandt^  In  dwelling  upon  details 
he  loses  the  thread  of  the  narrative  and,  notwithstand- 
ing all  his  care,  produces  only  cold  and  unnatural  com- 
positions, while  Rubens  seems  to  mock  at  this  confused 
kind  of  miniature-painting  with  the  glimmering  joy- 
ous beauty  of  nude  bodies  that  stand  out,  plastically 
rounded,  in  the  light  of  a  southern  sun. 

[185] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

In  his  designs  for  tapestries  Rubens  adopted  per- 
force the  same  careful  manner  of  treatment  within  a 
small  space,  for  he  was  obliged  to  facilitate  to  the 
utmost  the  task  of  the  pupils  to  whom  the  enlargement 
of  the  sketches  was  entrusted.  During  the  last  twenty 
years  of  his  life  he  prepared  designs  for  three  sets  of  tap- 
estries: in  1621  or  1622  for  a  History  of  Constantine, 
between  1626  and  1628  for  a  Triumph  of  Dogma, 
and  between  1630  and  1635  for  a  History  of  Achilles. 
Several  sketches  with  scenes  from  these  series  are 
owned  in  America,  and  they  afford  a  good  chance  to 
learn  how  complicated  is  the  task  of  distinguishing 
Rubens'  own  handiwork  from  studio  copies. 

Perhaps  the  most  beautiful  of  these  sketches  is  the 
one,  belonging  to  the  first  series,  that  is  reproduced 
in  Rosenberg's  Klassiker  der  Kunst  (p.  231)  and  is  now 
owned  by  Mr.  Johnson.  The  Emblem  of  Christ  Ap- 
pearing to  the  Emperor  Constantine  is  depicted  in  light 
and  brilliant  colours  with  a  sensitive  feeling  for  the 
sparkling  airy  vitality  of  the  sunbeams,  and  this  burst 
of  light  from  heaven  floods  the  groups  of  warriors  that 
crowd  around  the  young  emperor,  attracting  as  though 
in  a  magnetic  stream  the  glances  of  the  rhythmically 
moving  figures. 

The  second  and  longest  sequence  of  tapestries,  which 
presents  a  complicated  allegory  in  fifteen  pictures,  con- 
sists, as  Rooses  explains,  of  three  parts,  showing  the  tri- 
umph of  the  eucharist  over  its  enemies,  the  incidents  in 
Old  Testament  history  that  are  prophetic  of  the  euchar- 
ist, and  the  portraits  of  the  evangelists,  the  fathers  of 
the  church,  the  sovereigns,  and  the  popes  who  were 
defenders  of  the  eucharist.     To  the  second  part  belong 

[186] 


PICTURES    BY   RUBENS    IN   AMERICA 

the  two  sketches  now  in  America  —  the  Meeting  of 
Abraham  and  Melchizedek  in  the  Johnson  Collectioii 
and  a  sacrificial  scene  from  the  Old  Testament  that  has 
been  offered  for  sale  in  New  York.  There  are  several 
versions  of  almost  all  the  sketches  of  this  series.  Mr. 
Johnson's,  which  is  probably  identical  with  the  one  cited 
byRooses  as  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Spencer  F.  A. 
Smith  at  Clifton  Hill  in  England,  may  be  found  again 
in  the  Prado  and  also  in  Lord  Northb rook's  collection, 
and  the  other  corresponds  with  a  design  owned  by  Lord 
Spencer  who  also  owns  the  original  design  for  the  bor- 
der of  the  tapestry.  Both  the  sketches  now  in  Amer- 
ica are  freely  and  surely  handled,  much  in  the  great 
painter's  own  manner.  If  no  duplicates  were  known, 
the  idea  that  they  may  be  studio  copies  would  never 
suggest  itself. 

Still  more  complicated  is  the  question  of  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  designs  for  the  third  set  of  tapestries, 
dealing  with  the  story  of  Achilles.  The  six  pictures 
owned  by  Lord  Barry  more  in  London,  and  exhibited 
at  the  Grafton  Galleries  a  few  years  ago,  are  considered 
by  almost  every  one  the  original  sketches.  They  in- 
clude: (1)  Thetis  Dipping  Achilles  in  the  Styx;  (2)  Chiron 
Training  the  Young  Achilles;  (3)  Thetis  Causing  Vul- 
can to  Forge  the  Weapons;  (4)  Achilles  and  Agamemnon 
Contending  for  Briseis;  (5)  The  Death  of  Hector;  (6) 
The  Death  of  Achilles.  But  as  one  of  the  sets  of  tapes- 
tries that  were  made  from  these  designs  was  among 
Rubens'  effects  at  the  time  of  his  death,  and  as  it 
consisted  of  ten  pieces,  it  seems  as  though  four  of  the 
original  sketches  must  be  missing  from  Lord  Barrymore's 
series.     On  the  other  hand,  the  engravings  made  by 

[187] 


THE    ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

Ertringer  in  1679  show  only  eight  designs,  the  two  that 
are  lacking  in  Lord  Barrymore's  series  being:  (7)  Achil- 
les Among  the  Daughters  of  Lycomedes,  and  (8)  The 
Return  of  Briseis  to  Achilles.  It  has  therefore  been 
supposed  that  the  set  consisted  of  only  eight  pictures, 
and  that  two  of  the  ten  in  Rubens'  possession  were 
duplicates.  But  this  can  hardly  be  correct.  More 
likely  a  ninth  design  is  preserved  in  a  tapestry  which  is 
now  owned  by  Mr.  George  Robert  White  in  Boston  and 
which,  as  it  portrays  Thetis  Consulting  the  Oracle  in 
Regard  to  the  Young  Achilles,  may  well  be  the  first  of 
the  series.  Consequently  we  may  believe  that  there 
was  originally  a  tenth  picture  which  has  since  disap- 
peared. 

Two  sketches  with  the  missing  scenes  7  and  8  are  in 
American  collections  —  the  one  with  Briseis  owned  by 
Mr.  Jacob  H.  Schiff  in  New  York,  the  one  with  Achilles 
Among  the  Daughters  of  Lycomedes  in  the  Wilstach 
Collection  in  the  Fairmount  Park  Museum  at  Phil- 
adelphia; but  their  size  and  their  technical  character- 
istics prove  that  they  do  not  belong  with  Lord  Bar- 
rymore's. Rooses  notes  that  in  1643  designs  for  the 
Achilles  sequence  were  in  the  possession  of  Daniel 
Fourment,  Rubens'  father-in-law.  Beyond  a  doubt 
these  were  the  originals.  They  were  painted  on  wood, 
as  are  Lord  Barrymore's  sketches.  But  Mr.  Schiff's 
Briseis  sketch  is  on  canvas  (not  transferred  from  wood) 
and  is  larger  by  a  few  centimetres  than  the  correspond- 
ing sketches  in  England.  It  belongs,  as  does  the  sketch 
of  the  Death  of  Achilles  in  the  Berlin  Museum,  to  a 
second  series  of  studies  which,  although  hardly  inferior 
in  quality  to  the  first,  can  only  be  a  studio  replica.     On 

[188] 


PICTURES   BY   RUBENS    IN    AMERICA 

the  other  hand,  the  Httle  picture  of  Achilles  Among  the 
Daughters  of  Lycomedes  in  the  Philadelphia  Museum 
is  painted  on  wood  and  looks  authentic  but  lacks 
the  border  that  completes  the  sketches  in  England. 
And  it  is  not  very  probable  that  sketches  of  this  kind, 
without  the  border,  are  originals,  for  it  appears  that 
Rubens  always  designed  the  borders  with  the  pictures. 
In  fact,  his  patterns  for  tapestries  excel  in  just  this 
respect  those  of  other  painters,  the  borders  for  which 
were  often  separately  treated  or  were  even  borrowed 
from  other  sets  of  tapestries. 

From  Rubens'  sketches  his  pupils  —  according  to 
Rooses,  Theodor  van  Tulden  in  particular  —  executed 
larger  pictures,  measuring  about  107  by  108  centimetres, 
which  were  sent  as  patterns  to  the  tapestry  works  and 
there,  most  probably,  transferred  to  large  cartoons.* 
As  Rubens  himself  retouched  these  pictures,  they  are  so 
admirably  effective  in  execution  that  only  close  study 
reveals  the  handiwork  of  pupils.     Until  a  few  years  ago 

*  I  may  note  in  passing  a  few  more  studio  replicas  of  sketches  by  Rubens  that  are 
owned  in  America.  In  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  at  Boston  there  is  a  study  for  the 
great  altar-piece  of  1628  in  the  Church  of  the  Augustins  at  Antwerp,  but  it  is  infe- 
rior in  quality  to  the  autographic  sketches  at  Frankfort  and  Berlin.  That  a  little 
picture  of  St.  Theresa  Interceding  with  Christ,  owned  by  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan 
and  now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  at  New  York,  was  painted  from  the  altar- 
piece  and  is  not  a  study  for  it  has  already  been  pointed  out  by  Rooses  who  saw  the 
picture  in  the  collection  of  the  king  of  Belgium.  Of  small  importance  is  also  the 
little  picture  of  the  Repentant  Magdalene  now  in  the  collection  of  Senator  Wil- 
liam A.  Clark  in  New  York  and  formerly  owned  by  an  art  dealer  in  Vienna.  It  is 
reproduced  in  Rosenberg's  Klassiker  der  Kunst  as  an  original,  but  it  is  not,  as  Ro- 
senberg thought,  identical  with  the  life-size  painting  of  the  same  subject  now  in  the 
Linde  Collection  and  formerly  in  New  York.  I  cannot  agree  with  Rooses  that  this 
is  the  original  and  that  a  third  and  larger  version  in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum 
at  Berlin  (formerly  in  the  royal  palace)  is  an  enlargement  made  by  pupils.  On  the 
contrary,  the  Berlin  example  is,  artistically,  the  best,  and  the  pictures  in  the  Linde 
and  Clarke  Collections  are  studio  copies  of  portions  of  it. 

[189] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

eight  pictures  of  this  series  were  in  the  possession  of  the 
Duke  of  Infantado  at  Madrid;  then  six  of  them  passed 
into  the  collection  of  the  Duchess  of  Pastrana,  and  the 
remaining  two  into  the  Salamanca  Collection.  The 
duchess  gave  two  of  her  six  to  the  museum  at  Pau;  a 
third,  representing  Thetis  Dipping  Achilles  Into  the 
Styx,  came  through  the  Parisian  art  dealer  Pacully 
into  the  possession  of  Dr.  John  E.  Stillwell  of  New  York; 
a  fourth,  showing  Achilles  Among  the  Daughters  of 
Lycomedes  recently  appeared  in  the  German  art  market. 
It  is  small  wonder  that  the  sketches  for  this  set  of 
tapestries  should  have  been  copied.  Surely,  never 
before  or  since  has  the  story  of  Achilles  been  more  ad- 
mirably illustrated.  Rubens'  enthusiasm  for  classic  an- 
tiquity, his  profound  understanding  of  the  spirit  of  the 
ancient  writers,  and  his  ability  to  shape  a  world  of 
beauty  analogous  to  theirs,  enabled  him  to  create  by 
means  of  only  a  few  figures  dramatic  pictures  of  Ho- 
meric simplicity  and  grandeur.  The  figure  of  Achilles 
with  his  lust  for  combat  and  victory  and  his  propensity 
for  heroic  suffering  must  have  taken  a  strong  hold  on 
the  artist  whose  own  life  was  a  whirlwind.  It  expresses 
more  of  Rubens'  own  feeling  than  we  find  elsewhere. 
How  clearly  the  inner  conflict  is  portrayed  on  the 
countenance  of  Achilles  where  he  rushes  in  threatening 
wrath  upon  Agamemnon  who  has  robbed  him  of  Briseis, 
or  where  Minerva  masters  him,  grasping  him  by  his 
blond  and  flowing  hair!  How  deeply  he  is  stirred  by 
conflicting  emotions  where  Briseis  is  given  back  to 
him !  The  grief  he  had  felt  at  the  bier  of  his  friend  Pa- 
troclus  still  speaks  from  his  features,  but  joy  opens  his 
arms  to  the  maiden  who  modestly  stands  before  him, 

[190] 


RUBENS,    PORTRAIT    OF    HELIODORO    DE    BARRERA 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    F.    T.    FLEITMANX,    NEW    YORK 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS    IN   AMERICA 

unconscious  of  her  radiant  charms.  And  with  the 
same  deep  sympathy  is  depicted  the  death  of  the  hero; 
the  tragedy  is  touchingly  mirrored  in  his  face  as,  at 
the  very  moment  when  he  reaches  the  protection  of 
the  altar,  fate  overwhelms  him. 

At  about  the  time  when  Rubens  produced  these 
tapestry  patterns  he  was  at  work  on  the  subjects  for 
a  history  of  Henri  IV  w^hich  was  to  form  a  continuation 
of  the  cycle  from  the  life  of  Marie  de'  Medici  that  is 
now  in  the  Louvre.  The  execution  of  this  grandiose 
scheme  was  interrupted  by  the  arrest  of  Marie  de' 
Medici  and  her  flight  to  the  Netherlands.  The  six 
great  unfinished  paintings  w^ere  left  on  the  artist's 
hands  and  were  still  in  his  house  at  the  time  of  his 
death.  Two  of  them,  the  Entry  of  Henri  IV  into 
Paris  and  the  Battle  of  Vitry,  which  found  their 
way  into  the  Uffizi,  give  assurance  that  in  all  proba- 
bility this  series  of  pictures  would  have  surpassed  the 
Medici  series  and  would  have  been  one  of  Rubens' 
most  splendid  achievements.  He  had  worked  enthu- 
siastically on  the  designs,  saying  that  such  purely 
historical  scenes  were  much  better  fitted  for  pictorial 
representation  than  the  allegorical  subjects  of  the  Medici 
cycle. 

As  Rubens  evidently  meant  to  leave  to  his  pupils 
the  enlargement  of  these  sketches  also,  he  treated  them 
with  the  same  care  and  the  same  concentrated  power 
as  the  designs  for  tapestries.  Two  studies  for  the 
Entry  of  Henri  IV  are  in  London  —  one  of  them  in 
the  Wallace  Collection  and  the  other,  according  to 
Rooses,  in  private  hands;  a  larger  one,  probably  the 
final  version,  came  from  Lord  Darnley's  possession  into 

[191] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

the  collection  of  Mrs.  John  W.  Simpson  of  New  York. 
A  triumphal  procession  was  a  theme  well  adapted  to 
the  art  of  Rubens  who  always  welcomed  a  chance 
to  give  a  dramatic  incident  a  splendid  setting.  The 
arrangement  is  that  of  a  great  historical  play.  The 
prominent  figures  are  for  the  most  part  the  spectators 
and  the  accompanying  soldiers.  A  whole  world  seems 
to  have  bestirred  itself  to  celebrate  a  great  event  with 
pomp  and  rejoicing,  yet  in  reality  there  are  only  a  few 
groups  which,  by  their  display  of  varied  degrees  of  feel- 
ing, make  the  effect  of  throngs  of  people.  Here  are 
heralds  on  horseback  with  flags,  warriors  on  foot  with 
standards,  musicians  proudly  advancing,  and  specta- 
tors full  of  enthusiasm  and  expectation,  their  joy  con- 
trasting with  the  sorrow  of  the  prisoners  at  the  end  of 
the  procession.  The  whole  array  is  plastically  dis- 
posed in  a  concave  semicircle  densest  in  the  middle 
where  rises  above  the  seething  crowd,  as  though  magi- 
cally evoked,  the  sharp  silhouette  of  the  figure  of  the 
monarch,  crowned  by  a  winged  genius  with  a  wreath 
of  laurel. 

Nothing  is  more  striking  than  the  sight  of  an  art  as 
personal  as  that  of  Rubens  stepping  down  from  its 
lofty  sphere  into  the  actualities  of  portraiture.  Often 
it  struggles  in  vain  with  the  insignificance  of  the  sitter, 
far  beneath  the  level  of  the  painter's  own  nature,  and 
surrounds  it  with  unnaturally  loud  accessories  as  though 
to  hide  the  naked  truth.  But  if  the  sitter  is  in  any 
degree  in  accord  with  the  painter's  aspiring  aristo- 
cratic character,  Rubens'  dramatic  power  flames  up 
and  creates  an  orchestral  harmony  from  which  a 
glorified  likeness  emerges.     Of  this  kind  is  the  portrait 

[192] 


RUBENS,    THE    FALL   OF   ICARUS 
COLLECTION   OF   MR.   J.    G.   JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


PICTURES    BY   RUBENS   IN   AMERICA 

of  the  Earl  of  Arundel  in  Mrs.  Gardner's  collection  at 
Boston.  Even  the  animated  pose,  the  forward  inclina- 
tion of  the  body,  the  proud  turn  of  the  head,  the  light 
yet  firm  way  in  which  the  hand  grasps  the  truncheon, 
express  the  interest  excited  in  the  artist.  But  the  lively 
play  of  line  gains  an  iridescent  effect  from  the  flashing 
splendour  of  the  light  which  strikes  sharp  accents  from 
the  breastplate  and  the  helmet,  vivifies  the  eyes,  and 
wraps  the  whole  figure  in  a  vibrating  atmospheric  en- 
velope. The  only  strong  chord  of  colour  is  formed  by  the 
flowing  red  scarf  as  it  crosses  the  bluish  steel. 

There  is  a  marked  contrast  in  externals  between  this 
picture  and  the  masterly  portrait  of  Heliodoro  de  Bar- 
rera,  the  Jesuit  confessor  of  Philip  IV  of  Spain,  owned 
by  Mr.  Frederick  T.  Fleitmann  of  New  York,  which  is 
unobtrusive  in  arrangement,  in  technique,  and  in  the 
browns  and  grays  of  the  colouring.  But  the  same 
dramatic  intensity  and  the  same  controlling  intelligence 
speak  from  the  head  of  the  priest  as  from  the  head  of 
Arundel.  It  is  marvellous  how  the  painter  has  man- 
aged to  give  of  his  own  flesh  and  blood  to  this  harsh 
countenance  with  the  low  forehead,  protruding  ears, 
and  piercing  eyes,  the  hawk  nose  constricted  at  the 
nostrils,  and  the  brutally  sensual  mouth.  There  must 
have  been  something  that  appealed  to  Rubens  in  the 
autocratic  temper  or  the  political  sagacity  of  this  Jesuit. 
How  very  differently  Rembrandt  conceived  his  monks, 
those  figures  of  mild  and  brooding  aspect  who  seek  to 
save  the  world  by  their  example !  Rubens  portrays  the 
fanatic  to  whom  politics  and  religion  are  one  and  the 
same  and  whose  weapons  in  the  propagation  of  his 
creed  are  terror  and  guile.     In  works  of  this  kind  the 

[193] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

attitude  toward  life  and  the  world  that  sets  these  two 
great  painters  of  the  Low  Countries  so  far  apart  is  more 
clearly  revealed  than  in  the  great  ecclesiastical  and 
allegorical  pictures  intended  for  public  display. 

We  come  now  to  the  works  of  Rubens'  latter  years. 
Two  large  pictures  of  this  period  —  the  Holy  Fam- 
ily in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  and  the  Diana's 
Hunt  from  the  Ashburton  Collection,  now  owned  by 
Mrs.  Benjamin  Thaw  of  New  York  —  need  only  be 
named  for  they  are  well  known  and,  as  the  one  was 
partially  painted  by  pupils  and  the  other  is  not  very 
well  preserved,  they  are  not  altogether  satisfying.  Yet 
they  are  splendid  in  the  singular  mixed  colours  of  the 
costumes,  in  that  juxtaposition  of  orange,  purple,  and 
a  soft  red  which  is  characteristic  of  Rubens'  later  works; 
and  the  nymphs  in  Diana's  Hunt  are  very  delightful, 
instinct  with  a  childlike  charm  that  we  do  not  find  in  the 
more  self-conscious  sensuousness  of  the  early  pictures. 

It  is,  however,  the  sketches  of  this  period  —  there 
are  several  in  the  Johnson  and  Widener  Collections  — 
that  appeal  to  us  most  strongly,  for  they  have  not  only 
great  artistic  power  but  also  the  personal  quality  that 
we  find,  with  a  difference,  in  all  the  late  products  of 
great  masters.  I  mean  that  while  other  artists  speak, 
toward  the  close  of  their  career,  with  the  voice  of  trib- 
ulation, Rubens,  whose  whole  life  was  a  victorious 
march,  seems  to  triumph  over  all  the  weaknesses  of 
the  spirit.  His  last  works  are  ethereal  and  imaginative, 
full  of  harmony  and  joy,  radiant  with  light  bright 
colours.  Only  now  and  then,  when  he  is  forced  to  treat 
a  gloomy  theme,  do  we  also  find  a  deepening  of  his 
feeling  for  tragedy.     Thrillingly  he  portrays  the  Fall 

[194] 


s 

-  CI. 

5  < 

pq  ^ 

O  ? 

«  . 

W  . 

iZJ  o 


PICTURES    BY    RUBENS   IN   AMERICA 

of  Icarus,  the  despairing  cry  of  the  young  aeronaut  and 
the  alarmed  backward  glance  of  the  father,  while  he 
gives  suavity  and  beauty  to  the  scene  as  a  whole,  bath- 
ing it  in  the  golden  light  of  the  sun  and  spreading  a  soft 
enchanting  landscape  beneath  the  falling  figure.  In 
another  sketch  owned  by  Mr.  Johnson,  a  touching  scene 
probably  taken  from  Ovid,  a  tame  stag  that  has  been 
wounded  seeks  refuge  with  his  mistress  who,  with  a 
heart-broken  look,  holds  the  head  of  the  dying  animal 
in  her  lap.  The  mournful  aspect  of  the  stag  and  the 
lamentations  of  the  girl  are  rendered  with  a  depth  of 
feeHng  that  we  might  look  for  in  Rembrandt  rather 
than  Rubens.  Probably  both  of  these  sketches  (the 
second  has  appeared  in  the  Paris  picture  market  in  a 
better  preserved  but  feebler  version)  were  produced 
about  the  year  1635  as  parts  of  the  series,  commissioned 
by  Philip  IV,  which  with  his  pupils'  aid  Rubens  painted 
for  the  hunting  lodge  of  La  Parada  near  Madrid. 

In  the  way  of  designs  for  great  historical  compositions 
we  have  furthermore  the  Rape  of  the  Sabines  in  the 
Widener  Collection  and  the  Reconciliation  of  the 
Romans  and  Sabines  in  the  Johnson  Collection,  com- 
panion pieces  (notwithstanding  the  difference  in  shape) 
that  were  painted  a  little  later  than  1635,  at  the  same 
time  as  the  large  picture  of  the  Rape  of  the  Sabines 
which  is  now  in  the  National  Gallery  at  London.  The 
Reconciliation  Rubens  had  treated  once  before,  in 
1620  or  thereabouts,  in  a  picture,  chiefly  the  work  of  his 
pupils,  which  now  hangs  in  the  Munich  Pinakothek. 
And  in  the  same  list  belong  the  two  similar  designs, 
large  autographic  sketches,  that  passed  from  the  Ash- 
burton    Collection   into   the    possession   of   Alfred   de 

[195] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

Rothschild  of  Paris.  Certain  groups  in  one  of  these  are 
exact  dupHcates  of  groups  in  Mr.  Johnson's  sketch.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the  two  designs  in  America  are  later 
recastings  of  the  Paris  picture  that  were  prepared  by 
Rubens  for  two  larger  compositions,  ordered  by  the 
court  of  Spain  and  painted  most  probably  by  his  pu- 
pils, which  left  his  studio  only  a  short  time  before  he 
died  and  are  now  lost.  At  all  events  they  are  in  the 
grand  style  of  his  later  works.  Mr.  Widener's  es- 
pecially, the  larger  and  more  colourful  of  the  two,  is  a 
marvel  of  free  and  artistic  composition  and  of  joyous 
colour,  with  a  perfect  balance  of  movement  and  counter- 
movement  in  the  surging  groups  that  is  well  in  keeping 
with  the  rhythmic  harmony  of  the  tones.  The  bril- 
liant whites  of  the  garments  of  the  rider  of  the  white 
horse  in  the  centre  and  of  his  captive  are  enframed  by 
livelier  hues  —  by  the  orange  and  blue  of  the  mantle 
of  the  pleading  old  man  and  the  red  scarf  of  the  warrior 
who  lifts  the  maiden  onto  the  horse.  Lighter  masses 
then  lose  themselves  on  either  hand  in  the  golden 
illumination  of  the  landscape  and  the  buildings  that 
form  the  background,  and  in  the  corners,  again,  a  few 
figures  stand  out  in  brighter  colours,  notably  the  wo- 
men at  the  left,  frightened  yet  hesitating  in  their  flight, 
whose  draperies  are  shot  with  the  singular  bluish-red 
and  orange-brown  tints  of  Rubens'  latest  manner. 
All  of  this  is  rendered  in  airy  tones  with  a  royal  freedom 
of  hand  and  an  amazing  skill  in  the  management  of 
the  masses,  which  are  woven  together  in  an  unusual 
way,  like  a  splendid  ornamental  pattern,  yet  clearly  ex- 
press the  spirit  of  the  scene  in  its  every  detail. 

While  this  composition  is  developed  in  a  vigorously 

[196] 


O    ffi 

«  ft 


PICTURES   BY   RUBENS   IN   AMERICA 

plastic  way  from  the  foreground  into  a  distance  of 
considerable  depth,  the  groups  in  Mr.  Johnson's  sketch 
are  set  against  a  dark  background,  more  in  the  manner 
of  a  classic  relief,  and  are  so  arranged  that  the  action 
is  for  the  most  part  from  one  side  of  the  picture  toward 
the  other.  Instead  of  being  loosely  grouped  the  masses 
are  now  held  firmly  together  and  are  concentrated  not 
in  the  centre  of  the  composition  but  in  two  foci.  The 
lines  radiate  in  both  directions  from  the  heads  of  the 
two  warriors  who  rise  above  the  others;  and  the  women 
in  the  centre,  involved  in  these  centrifugal  streams, 
form  the  material  as  well  as  the  spiritual  link  between 
the  two  parts  of  the  design.  The  vigorous  action 
achieved,  in  spite  of  this  concentration,  in  the  various 
figures,  the  complete  emotional  surrender  with  which 
the  women  perform  their  task  of  reconciliation,  the 
reticence  of  the  low-toned  steel-gray  colouring  that 
gives  the  scene  a  pathetically  impassioned  character  — 
all  these  qualities  meet  in  a  creation  such  as  only  the 
loftiest  genius  curbed  by  life-long  experience  could  have 
brought  forth. 

During  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  Rubens  lived  in 
retirement  in  the  country,  painting  at  the  mediaeval 
manor  of  Steen,  which  with  the  wide  lands  belonging 
to  it  he  had  bought,  those  incomparable  landscapes 
that  were  to  have  so  high  a  value  for  posterity  and 
especially  for  the  art  of  England  as  represented  by  a 
Constable  and  a  Turner.  The  prodigious  career  of  the 
great  painter  came  to  an  end  like  the  ending  of  Faust. 
As  is  likely  to  be  the  case  with  aging  artists,  he  re- 
turned to  simple  themes  and  sought  for  marvels  in 
natural  and  obvious  things,  studying  the  hilly  regions 

[  197  1 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

around  his  estate  and  the  peasants  at  their  humble 
happy  tasks,  observing  the  all-pervasive  influence  of 
the  atmosphere,  and  noting  the  intimate  dependence 
of  all  living  things  upon  the  earth  that  bears  them. 
He  tried  to  find  peace  in  an  escape  from  the  immediate, 
strongly  sensuous  visions  of  an  imagination  trained  by 
familiarity  with  human  forms.  It  was  not  granted  to 
his  restless  temperament  to  know  the  fulness  of  such 
peace.  A  life  that  had  been  so  incessantly  impelled 
to  action  by  such  imperious  passions  could  not  suddenly 
come  to  rest  in  a  mood  of  objective  contemplation. 
The  desire  to  produce,  to  create,  still  persists,  express- 
ing itself  less  openly  and  in  a  different  way.  Domi- 
nated now  by  inorganic  nature,  he  transmutes  it  into 
a  personahty  overbrimming  with  power,  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  magnificent  sketch.  Landscape  After  Rain, 
owned  by  Mr.  Johnson.  Here  the  earth  is  stirred  as 
though  by  a  force  from  within  itself,  the  steaming 
heights  are  lost  in  luminous  wide-spreading  clouds, 
the  verdant  fields  teem  and  glow  with  the  sap  of  life, 
and  all  the  lines  of  the  landscape  rise  and  fall  in  a  single 
gush  of  dramatic  energy.  In  this  heroic  representation 
of  nature,  men  and  animals  are  of  no  more  account 
than  rocks  and  bushes.  A  human  being  can  only  let 
himself  be  borne  along  by  the  tumult  of  the  elements, 
or  sit  by  the  wayside  in  thoughtful  contemplation  of 
the  great  spectacle. 


[198] 


RUBENS,    LANDSCAPE 

COLLECriON    OF   MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


RUBENS,    COWS 

COLLECnON    OF   MR.    J.    G.   JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


VAN    DYCK,    AN   APOSTLE 

IN    PRIVATE    OWNERSHIP,    NEW    YORK 


XI 

PICTURES  BY  VAN  DYCK  IN  AMERICA 

VAN  DYCK,  whose  gift  was  primarily  for 
portraiture,  occupied  himself  at  first,  as  did 
Rembrandt  also,  with  studies  of  the  strongly 
characterized  heads  of  old  men.  He  cared  less,  however, 
for  that  revelation  of  the  soul  which  interested  Rem- 
brandt than  for  the  decorative  sweep  of  the  subject 
before  him.  His  apostles  are  play-actors  who,  to  pro- 
duce an  effect  at  a  distance,  pose  in  daring  attitudes  with 
over-emphatic  gestures  while,  to  express  the  pathos  of 
their  words,  their  boldly  flung  draperies,  their  flowing 
locks  and  beards,  and  even  their  features  assume  wide 
simplified  curves. 

It  is  known  that  at  the  age  of  sixteen  van  Dyck  had 
already  produced  two  series  of  Apostles,  one  of  them 
with  the  aid  of  pupils.  Parts  of  these  series  are  now 
preserved  at  Dresden,  in  the  Louvre,  and  in  Lord 
Spencer's  collection  at  Althorp  House;  two  pictures 
belonging  to  them  are  in  private  collections  in  America 
- —  one  in  New  York  and  the  other,  owned  by  Mr. 
F.  G.  Macomber,  in  Boston;  and  a  study-head  of  an  old 
man  which  was  painted  at  the  same  time  is  in  the  John- 

[199] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

son  Collection  in  Philadelphia.  There  is  still  much  of 
Rubens  in  the  way  these  heads  are  painted,  but  the 
pupil  betrays  himself  in  the  short  nervous  curves  that 
break  the  contour  of  the  forehead,  the  nose,  and  the 
hair  as  well  as  in  the  warm  brown  tone  of  the  shadows 
and  the  scarlet  reflections  around  the  eyes. 

The  youthful  female  type  of  this  period  surpasses 
in  luxuriance  of  form  even  the  types  of  Rubens.  Yet 
these  figures  of  van  Dyck's  have  lost  the  robust  and 
joyous  sensuousness  of  their  prototypes;  they  seem  to 
faint  with  desire  or  to  be  consumed  by  a  fanatical  frenzy. 
Some  of  them  are  among  the  most  expressive  of  van 
Dyck's  creations  outside  the  field  of  portraiture  —  for 
example,  the  girl  in  the  Worship  of  the  Serpent  in 
the  Prado  Gallery,  in  whose  face  the  last  upflaring  of 
wild  passion  is  expressed  in  a  masterly  way.*  Often, 
however,  the  artist  falls  into  sentimentality;  only  the 
glow  of  his  colour  and  the  fine  swing  of  his  design  recon- 
cile us  to  his  over-accentuation  of  the  note  of  pathos. 

Van  Dyck  used  the  same  female  model  in  several  of 
his  early  compositions,  as  in  the  Repentant  Magdalene 
of  Sir  Frederick  Cook  and  the  one  in  the  Amsterdam 
gallery,  in  the  Delilah  at  Vienna  and  the  Drunken 
Silenus  at  Dresden.  The  Repentant  Magdalene  of 
the  Johnson  Collection,  one  of  those  works  in  which 
the  young  painter  abandoned  himself  to  his  sense  of  the 
woes  of  the  world,  looks  like  a  preparatory  study  for 

*  In  the  place  where  it  hangs,  this,  the  most  beautiful  of  van  Dyck's  early  composi- 
tions, is  still  attributed  to  Rubens,  although  it  has  been  restored  to  its  painter  by 
Bode  and  by  other  critics.  The  studies,  preserved  at  Bremen  and  in  the  British 
Museum,  for  the  Marriage  of  St  Catherine,  which  is  in  the  same  gallery  and  is 
there  attributed  to  Jordaens,  prove  that  it  is  also  one  of  van  Dyck's  early  works.  It 
was  first  recognized  as  such  by  Hulin  and  by  Buschman  (P.  Buschman,  Jr.,  Jacob 
Jordaens.     Amsterdam,  1905,  p.  133). 

[200] 


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VAN    DYCK,    STUDY    HEAD 
COLLECnON    OF   MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


VAN  DYCK,  THE  REPENTANT  MAGDALENE 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    J.    G.    JOHNSON,    PHILADELPHIA 


PICTURES   BY    VAN   DYCK   IN   AMERICA 

the  Amsterdam  picture.  This  restless  yielding  to  the 
mood  of  the  moment,  a  youthful  trait  with  emotional 
natures,  reveals  and,  indeed,  exaggerates  in  a  mislead- 
ing degree  all  the  artist's  inborn  qualities.  Enthusiasm 
and  sensuosness,  melancholy  and  sensibility,  are  all  im- 
plicit in  the  unquiet  intricacy  of  the  lines  that  enframe 
the  figure. 

The  recent  discovery  of  a  portrait  of  a  man  by  van 
Dyck,  dated  in  1613  when  he  was  only  fourteen  years 
of  age,  proves  that  he  had  already  entered  upon  his 
true  path  when  he  was  making  his  first  studies  of  heads. 
The  main  period  of  his  activity  in  portraiture,  ante- 
cedent to  his  Italian  journey,  seems  to  have  been  from 
1618  to  1621.  Then,  and  especially  toward  the  end  of 
the  period,  he  painted  a  number  of  portraits  that  rank 
among  his  finest  works.  Most  of  them,  long  attributed 
to  Rubens  and  other  painters,  were  restored  to  van  Dyck 
by  Bode,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  first  accurate 
account  of  the  early  phases  of  the  artist's  development. 

Among  the  works  of  this  period  that  are  now  in 
America  the  most  famous  is,  quite  rightly,  the  portrait 
of  Frans  Snyders,  formerly  owned  by  the  Earl  of  Car- 
lisle and  now,  together  with  its  pendant,  the  portrait 
of  Snyders'  wife  obtained  from  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  in 
the  collection  of  Mr.  Frick  in  New  York.  The  fact 
that  he  had  close  personal  relations  with  his  sitter  must 
have  made  a  difference  even  to  van  Dyck.  Snyders 
was  a  friend  whom  van  Dyck,  at  his  own  instance,  had 
painted  several  times,  a  friend  of  like  nature  with  him- 
self, if  we  may  assume  the  veracity  of  the  portraits. 
And  it  is  hard  not  to  have  faith  in  them,  so  amazingly 
real  is  the  personality  they  evoke  for  us.     We  cannot 

[201] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

help  believing  in  them  even  though  we  feel  that  van 
Dyck  must  have  put  into  them  a  good  deal  of  himself, 
for  we  should  hardly  divine  the  painter  of  brutal  ani- 
mal combats  and  reeking  butcher  shops  in  this  lean 
figure  with  its  melancholy  eyes  and  nervous  fingers. 
A  singular  rhythm  of  line,  which  becomes  almost  extrav- 
agantly mobile  in  the  salient  curves  of  the  curtain  and 
the  hands,  is  in  keeping  with  the  over-sensitive  aspect 
of  the  figure,  and  the  colouring,  dominated  by  a  deep 
blue  and  a  grayish-purple,  reflects  the  wistful  expression 
of  the  head. 

In  addition  to  this  picture  of  Mr.  Frick's,  there  are 
three  portraits  of  Snyders  by  van  Dyck  —  the  oft- 
described  double  portrait  at  Cassel,  the  half-length  in 
the  Liechtenstein  Collection  at  Vienna,  and  a  portrait 
at  Raby  Castle  in  England  which  Lionel  Cust  mentions 
but  I  have  not  seen.  I  cannot  agree  with  Cust's  opinion 
that  the  Trick  pictures  were  painted  later  than  those 
at  Cassel  and  Vienna  and  perhaps  not  until  after  van 
Dyck's  sojourn  in  Italy.  There  is  a  closer  relationship 
between  the  three  portraits  of  Snyders  than  at  first 
glance  appears.  He  sat  for  but  one  of  them;  both 
the  others  are  autographic  copies  in  which  only  sub- 
ordinate parts  are  changed.  The  earliest  is  undoubt- 
edly Mr.  Frick's,  which  is  painted  as  though  without 
break  or  pause,  and  has  all  the  freshness  of  a  first  im- 
pression. The  Liechtenstein  picture  cannot  be  a 
preliminary  study  for  this  one;  the  accessories  —  the  pi- 
laster, the  curtain,  the  costume  —  are  more  precisely 
rendered  than  they  would  be  in  a  study.  It  is  a  copy, 
of  the  same  date,  of  part  of  Mr.  Frick's  picture,  a  copy 
that  has  lost  a  little  of  the  vitality  of  the  original. 

[202] 


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VAN  DYCK,  PORTRAIT  OF  FRANS  SNYDERS 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    H.    C.    FRICK,    XEW    YORK 


PICTURES    BY    VAN    DYCK    IN   AMERICA 

A  comparison  of  the  picture  at  Cassel  with  the  two  in 
Mr.  Trick's  possession  throws  hght  upon  van  Dyck's 
methods  of  working.  He  has  fused  the  two  into  one, 
reproducing  exactly  the  upper  parts  of  the  bodies  as 
well  as  the  outline  of  the  curtain  and  the  landscape, 
but,  as  Snyder's  wife  was  seated,  changing  the  attitude 
of  the  husband.  The  chair  upon  which  he  leans  in  the 
Frick  picture  is  omitted,  while  the  one  upon  which  he 
is  now  sitting  is  indicated  by  a  knob  introduced  above 
his  shoulder;  and  he  has  laid  one  hand  on  his  breast 
and  the  other  on  the  arm  of  his  wife's  chair.  The  posi- 
tion of  the  woman's  fingers  is  unchanged,  but  now  she 
lays  her  right  hand  upon  her  husband's  left  instead  of 
upon  the  arm  of  her  chair.  These  alterations  show  how 
easily  van  Dyck  worked  even  when  he  had  no  model 
before  him.  Out  of  two  single  portraits  he  makes  a 
group,  retaining  the  most  important  parts  but,  without 
the  least  suggestion  of  un veracity,  altering  at  his  pleas- 
ure the  position  of  the  arms.  The  Frick  picture  tells 
why,  in  the  group,  the  pillar  at  the  back  is  preserved 
between  the  two  figures,  and  why  the  man  is  posed  in  a 
way  which,  when  closely  examined,  seems  uncomfortable 
or  even  impossible,  as  his  legs  must  come  into  collision 
with  the  woman's  chair.  The  heads  lack  force  when 
compared  with  the  portraits  in  New  York.  Such  a  pic- 
ture as  the  Snyders  of  the  Frick  Collection  marks  the 
summit  of  van  Dyck's  achievement  in  the  portrayal  of 
the  well-bred  bourgeoisie  of  Holland. 

With  the  pictures  of  the  Genoese  period  we  find  him 
in  another  world,  the  world  where  for  the  future  he 
was  to  feel  most  at  home.  In  this  new  environment  his 
art  grew  more  exclusive,  reserving  itself  for  dwellers 

[203] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

in  palaces  and  their  friends.  There  has  never  been 
question  of  its  adequacy  within  this  narrow  circle,  but 
ordinary  mortals  still  often  bring  against  it  the  reproach 
of  a  decadent  superficiality.  The  charge  is  unjust. 
The  art  of  van  Dyck  may  easily  fail  to  appeal  to  those 
who  know  it  only  in  the  cold  keeping  of  a  museum,  or 
may  merely,  like  a  street  parade  of  royalties,  evoke  in 
romantic  souls  a  vision  of  splendid  palaces.  But  it  is 
wholly  convincing  where  it  still  serves  to  glorify  an  aris- 
tocracy with  which  it  shares  the  task  of  cultivating 
in  artistic  ways  the  surface  of  existence.  In  magnifi- 
cent apartments  these  portraits  gain  reality.  They 
are  living  decorations  that  fit  into  the  general  frame. 
They  seem  to  be  speaking  with  a  charming  smile  of 
delightful  unimportant  things  —  of  an  attractive  cos- 
tume, a  graceful  pose,  a  fine  saddle-horse,  a  favourite 
dog.  The  content  is  naught  in  comparison  to  the  form 
which,  like  all  perfect  things,  has  the  easy  effortless 
look  of  an  instantaneous  creation,  but  in  reality  is  a 
slowly  evolved  result  of  tradition  and  hard  work.  The 
cares  of  life  do  not  stir  the  surface  of  these  pictures. 
Herein  they  differ  from  Rembrandt's  which  are  instinct 
with  trouble  in  every  stroke  and  are  therefore  ill- 
adapted  to  regal  surroundings.  In  such  surroundings 
Rembrandt  is  like  a  philosopher  gone  astray  in  a  palace 
and  preaching  wisdom  to  heedless  ears  in  phrases  hard  to 
understand.  He  claims  too  much  attention;  he  makes 
too  great  a  demand  upon  the  less  well-endowed  ob- 
server. Van  Dyck  asks  only  a  passing  glance  from  the 
court  circle  that  moves  around  his  feet,  only  a  word  of 
thanks  for  immortalizing  on  canvas  the  intoxicating 
atmosphere  of  high-bred  society.     No  one  else  ever 

[204] 


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VAN    DYCK,    PORTRAIT    OF    THE    MARCHESA    DURAZZO 

METROPOLITAN    MUSEUM    OF    ART,    NEW    YORK 


PICTURES   BY    VAN    DYCK   IN    AMERICA 

knew  so  well  how  to  surround  his  figures  with  the  inde- 
finable glamour  —  the  subtile  aroma  compounded  of 
nature  and  of  art  and  emanating  from  a  gesture,  a  word, 
or  a  glance  —  that  constitutes  the  charm  of  the  patri- 
cian world. 

It  is  not  fortuitous  that  the  pictures  of  van  Dyck's 
Genoese  period  should  have  been  particularly  well 
liked  by  the  nascent  aristocracy  of  the  New  World. 
No  less  than  five  of  the  very  finest  of  his  portraits  of 
women  are  in  America.  Two  belong  to  Mr.  Widener 
of  Philadelphia  who  has  fittingly  housed  them,  with 
four  other  masterpieces  from  the  same  hand,  in  a  room 
built  for  the  purpose;  a  third,  the  portrait  of  the  Mar- 
chesa  Spinola,  is  owned  by  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan  of  New 
York,  and  the  others  by  Mr.  Frick  of  New  York  and 
Mr.  Charles  Taft  of  Cincinnati,  a  brother  of  the  former 
President.  Two  of  the  most  beautiful  half-lengths 
of  the  same  period,  the  Marchesa  Durazzo  from  the 
Rudolph  Kann  Collection  in  Paris,  and  the  Lucas  van 
Uffelen  formerly  owned  by  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  are 
in  the  Altman  Collection  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 
And  to  these  must  be  added  several  admirable  portraits 
of  Genoese  aristocrats  in  the  Frick  and  Untermyer 
Collections  in  New  York. 

The  biography  of  the  artist  tells  us  something  about 
the  original  of  one  of  these  portraits.  Lucas  van 
Uffelen  was  one  of  van  Dyck's  Flemish  acquaintances 
with  whom  he  grew  more  intimate  during  his  stay  in 
Genoa,  an  Antwerp  merchant  who  controlled  part  of 
the  trade  between  Antwerp  and  Genoa,  and  a  collector 
of  works  of  art.  That  he  also  dealt  in  such  works  we 
learn  from  the  account  of  the  sale  at  auction,  at  Amster- 

[205] 


THE   ART   OF   THE   LOW   COUNTRIES 

dam  in  1639,  of  a  number  of  valuable  paintings  that  he 
had  imported  from  Italy.  As  great  a  person  as  Rem- 
brandt was  interested  in  this  auction  and  made  a  sketch 
of  the  most  important  picture  —  Raphael's  portrait  of 
Count  CastigHone,  now  in  the  Louvre  —  which  is  pre- 
served in  the  Albertina  at  Vienna  with  the  high  price 
that  was  paid  for  the  picture  noted  on  the  margin. 

Van  Dyck's  etching  of  Titian  and  his  mistress  testifies 
to  his  friendship  for  van  Uffelen,  bearing  the  dedica- 
tion, Al  Signore  Luca  van  Uffel  in  segno  d'affectione  et 
inclinatione  amorevole.  In  the  Brunswick  Gallery  there 
is  another  portrait  of  van  Uffelen  by  van  Dyck,  his 
merchant  fleet  shown  in  the  background  as  off  the  coast 
of  Italy.  The  finer  one  in  the  Altman  Collection  re- 
veals the  road  that  the  artist  had  travelled  since  the 
time  when  he  painted  Mr.  Trick's  portrait  of  Snyders. 
The  two  sitters  belonged  to  the  same  social  stratum, 
the  bourgeois  middle  class.  But  we  fancy  that  we  rec- 
ognize in  van  Uffelen  the  bom  aristocrat  with  whom 
the  expression  of  the  head  and  the  attitude  of  the  body 
correspond,  whereas  with  Snyders  the  expression  is  too 
strongly  marked  to  be  duly  subordinate  to  the  self- 
conscious  elegance  of  the  pose.  As  we  see  most  clearly 
in  the  portraits  of  women  of  his  Genoese  period,  van 
Dyck  now  lays  more  stress  than  before  upon  the  quality 
of  distinction  in  the  figure  as  a  whole,  upon  that  har- 
mony between  all  parts  of  the  body  which  is  always 
one  of  the  factors  in  an  air  of  high  breeding.  Of  course 
this  means  a  loss  of  expressiveness  in  the  several  parts. 
The  general  outline  has  grown  simpler.  The  effect  of 
momentary  action,  which  in  the  portrait  of  Snyders  is 
produced  by  the  strong  curves,  now  emanates  directly 

[206] 


VAN  DYCK,  PORTRAIT  OF  LUCAS  VAN  UFFELEN 

METROPOLITAN    MUSEUM    OF    ART,    NEW    YORK 


PICTURES    BY    VAN    DYCK   IN   AMERICA 

from  the  subject  himself,  and  the  fact  that  he  can  retain 
the  elegance  of  his  bearing  despite  his  sudden  change 
of  position  as  he  turns  his  head  toward  a  coming  visitor 
enhances  the  impression  of  high  breeding.  Even  more 
conspicuous  is  the  difference  in  colour  between  the  two 
pictures.  During  the  years  that  separated  them  van 
Dyck  had  made  acquaintance  with  the  great  Venetians, 
and  to  the  aging  Titian,  whom  he  portrayed  in  the 
etching  dedicated  to  van  Uffelen,  more  than  to  any  one 
else  he  owed  the  beautiful  warm  golden  tone  that  now 
envelopes  his  sitter,  the  deep  luscious  black  of  the  cos- 
tume, and  the  play  of  the  peculiar  mixed  reddish- 
brown  hues  in  the  curtain  and  the  table  cover  —  hues 
which  in  his  colour-loving  youth  he  had  not  yet  learned 
to  value,  but  to  which  his  emotional  temperament  now 
gives  an  intenser  glow  than  they  have  on  Titian's  can- 
vas. 

A  love  of  elegance  was  developed  in  van  Dyck  by 
his  intercourse  with  the  Genoese  aristocracy.  He  is 
said  to  have  lost  his  heart  to  no  less  a  personage  than 
Paola  Adorno,  the  incomparable  wife  of  the  Marchese 
Brignole-Sala,  and  we  almost  put  faith  in  the  tradition 
when  we  remember  that  he  painted  her  more  often 
and  certainly  not  with  less  enthusiasm  than  any  other 
great  lady  of  Genoa.  Mr.  Frick  and  Mr.  Widener  own 
two  of  these  portraits.  In  Mr.  Widener's  the  marchesa, 
accompanied  by  her  son  as  by  a  page,  is  seated  like  a 
queen  between  marble  columns.  We  can  divine  the  ar- 
tist's intent  to  create  something  unprecedented  in  the 
way  of  grandeur  and  beauty  of  form.  He  seems,  indeed, 
to  go  almost  too  far.  Deferring  to  the  current  concep- 
tion of  beauty,  he  exaggerates  the  height  of  the  figure 

[207] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

which  wins  importance  also  from  the  traihng  robe;  and 
he  gives  the  lady  a  statuesque  air,  framing  her  cool 
transparent  face  between  the  vertical  architectural  lines 
and  showing  it  in  strict,  almost  schematized,  profile. 
There  is  something  so  superhuman  in  her  grandeur  that 
we  feel  there  can  be  no  link  between  it  and  the  boy 
with  his  precociously  self-conscious  expression. 

At  this  time,  when  van  Dyck  was  wholly  possessed 
by  the  aristocratic  ideal,  he  had  little  feeling  for  the 
characteristics  of  childhood.  When  he  painted  the 
Genoese  ladies  with  their  children  he  used  the  doll-like 
little  ones  simply  as  foils  to  augment  the  expression  of 
grandeur  and  of  superior  intelligence  in  their  elders, 
somewhat  as  he  put  beside  a  great  lady  —  for  example, 
in  the  picture  owned  by  Mr.  Taft  —  a  playful  little 
dog  whose  graceful  heedless  gambols  emphasize  by 
contrast  her  dignified  placidity.  In  the  portrait  of 
Paola  Adorno  he  uses  the  boy  with  his  splendid  red  and 
yellow  velvet  dress  as  a  colour-contrast  to  the  deep 
black  of  the  satin  gown.  An  art  like  this  was  too  am- 
bitious and  too  self-satisfied  to  take  an  interest  in  child- 
hood. Later  on,  in  his  English  period,  when  van  Dyck 
stood  in  a  calmer,  more  objective  relation  to  his  sitters, 
he  painted  children  also  with  a  charming  naturalness, 
but  even  then  only  princely  children  whom  a  confident 
self-conscious  air  well  befits. 

It  was  fortunate  that  he  did  not  paint  Elena  Gri- 
maldi,  the  Marchesa  Cattaneo,  and  her  children  on  the 
same  canvas,  but  chose  for  her  attendant  a  servant  of 
whom  we  are  better  content  to  have  a  superficial  like- 
ness. The  portraits  of  her  son  and  her  daughter  which 
now  hang  on  either  side  of  her  own  in  Mr.  Widener's 

[  208  ] 


VAX   DYCK,    PORTRAIT   OF   THE    MARCHESA    BRIGNOLE-SALA 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    P.    A.    B.    WIDENER,    PHILADELPHIA 


PICTURES    BY    VAN    DYCK    IN   AMERICA 

van  Dyck  room  are  satisfying  companion  pieces,  their 
reticent  amber-hued  colouring  leading  up  in  an  admi- 
rable way  to  the  glowing  marvel  between  them.  This  is 
rightly  ranked  as  one  of  van  Dyck's  most  incompara- 
ble creations.  All  nature  and  all  art  seem  to  serve  this 
sovereign  lady.  Everything  exists  to  enhance  her  charm. 
Although  a  full-length  portrait  of  life  size  always 
dominates  the  observer,  seldom  has  a  painter  known 
how  to  express  so  convincingly  the  physical  and  men- 
tal superiority  of  the  personage  he  depicts.  As  though 
on  Olympian  heights  the  figure  sweeps  majestically 
by,  casting  an  indifferent  glance  on  those  who  stand 
below.  The  elevated  position,  the  hiding  of  the  feet 
by  the  long  robe,  the  servile  attitude  and  subordinate 
size  of  the  negro,  the  lifted  parasol  that  adds,  as  it 
w^ere,  to  the  height  of  the  figure  —  everything  helps  to 
augment  the  grandeur  of  the  splendid  apparition.  Her 
slendemess  dares  to  measure  itself  with  the  aspiring 
architecture  of  the  palace,  and  the  definite  lines  of  her 
dark  dress,  its  aristocratic  simplicity  emphasized  by 
the  golden  yellow  of  the  servant's  costume  and  the  red 
of  the  parasol,  contrast  effectively  with  the  unquiet 
structure  of  the  landscape.  The  head,  relieved  against 
the  background  of  deep  and  glowing  colour,  is  such  as 
we  might  expect;  the  flashing  eyes,  the  thin  nose  and 
sensitive  mouth  reveal  a  person  accustomed  to  dominate 
by  her  intelligence  and  to  manifest  with  unconscious 
pride  her  sense  of  her  patrician  birth.  Nor  does  the 
stage-setting  seem  too  elaborate  for  the  characterization 
of  such  a  figure,  for  the  artist  understood  that  in  the 
portrayal  of  an  aristocrat  the  environment  counts  for 
quite  as  much  as  the  individuahty  of  the  personage. 

[209] 


THE   ART    OF    THE   LOW    COUNTRIES 

The  marchesa  and  her  surroundings  are  in  perfect  accord. 
Even  the  flowers  in  the  foreground  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  garden  have  the  air  of  works  of  art,  and 
the  veiled  yet  glowing  tones  of  the  sky  create  a  magical 
atmosphere  from  which  the  figure  emerges  as  from  am- 
ber-coloured clouds. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  when  van  Dyck's  art  was 
full  of  a  lofty  energy,  a  burning  enthusiasm,  it  was  his 
task  to  paint  high-born  personages  of  the  Latin  race, 
and  later,  when  it  had  grown  colder  and  paler,  to  por- 
tray the  impassive  nobles  of  the  English  court.  Or  was 
he  perhaps  of  so  malleable  a  nature  that  he  formed  him- 
self on  the  aristocrats  of  alien  lands?  Was  he  one  of 
those  pliant,  over-excitable  beings  who  come  to  life 
only  in  the  company  of  others  and  then  show  the  splen- 
dour of  their  powers  as  circumstances  may  dictate? 
However  this  may  be,  with  van  Dyck,  as  with  all  great 
men,  inner  development  and  outer  achievement  seem 
to  go  hand  in  hand.  When  he  returned  from  Italy  to 
the  Low  Countries  his  characteristics  changed  with  the 
change  of  climate.  Instead  of  the  warm  enthusiasm 
of  the  south  we  have  now  an  attitude  of  reserve,  instead 
of  a  buoyant  impetuosity  a  contemplative  subjective 
mood,  and  canvases  with  a  silvery -gray  scheme  of  colour 
instead  of  a  warm  and  golden  tone.  The  artist  remem- 
bers again  the  ideals  of  his  youth  which  demanded 
above  all  else  the  significant  characterization  of  a  head. 
But  as  in  the  meantime  he  has  lost  his  tendency  to  ex- 
aggerate and  has  gained  the  power  to  express  a  natural 
kind  of  elegance,  he  now  gives  his  figures  individuality 
combined  with  an  air  of  aristocratic  reserve. 

Part  of  the  credit  for  this  revival  of  his  interest  in 

[210] 


VAN    DYCK,    PORTRAIT    OF    THE    MARCHESA    CATTANEO 

COLLECTION    OF    MR.    P.    A.    B.    WIDENER,    PHILADELPHIA 


PICTURES    BY    VAN    DYCK    IN   AMERICA 

the  interpretation  of  character  was  undoubtedly  due 
to  his  sitters.  Never,  not  in  Genoa  nor  later  on  in 
England,  had  he  more  important  personages  to  portray 
than  in  the  five  years  of  this  second  Antwerp  period, 
between  1627  and  1632,  for  the  stage  for  the  chief 
events,  military  and  intellectual,  in  the  drama  of 
European  life  was  then  set  in  the  Low  Countries. 
Almost  every  great  soldier,  artist,  and  statesman  who 
lived  or  briefly  tarried  in  the  cosmopolis  called  Ant- 
werp sat  to  the  painter  who  had  become  world-famous 
during  his  residence  in  Italy.  If  it  is  hard  for  the  ob- 
server to  remember  the  features  of  Genoese  and  of 
English  nobles,  he  does  not  so  easily  forget  the  striking 
personalities  of  this  intermediate  period  —  the  por- 
traits of  such  artists  as  Ryckaert,  Pepijn,  and  Snayers, 
of  such  scholars  as  van  der  Wouwer,  Scribani,  and 
Puteanus,  and  such  military  commanders  as  Spinola, 
Thomas  de  Carignan,  Albert  von  Arenberg,  and  Hen- 
drick  van  der  Bergh. 

The  many  religious  pictures  that  van  Dyck  painted 
at  this  time  for  the  churches  of  Flanders  are  another 
proof  of  his  growth  in  intellectual  seriousness,  although 
they  do  not  rank  among  his  finest  works.  Ecstatic  in 
expression  and  gray  in  tone,  they  reveal  an  almost 
tragic  effort  to  succeed  in  a  direction  where  he  never 
developed  into  anything  more  than  an  imitator,  with 
an  exaggerating  brush,  of  his  great  forerunner,  Rubens. 

Two  portraits  now  in  America,  the  Count  of  Nas- 
sau in  the  collection  of  Mrs.  Emery  at  Cincinnati 
and  a  portrait  of  a  man  owned  by  the  late  Mr.  M.  C. 
D.  Borden  of  New  York,  mark  the  opposite  extremes 
of  van  Dyck's  achievement  at  this  time.     The  Count 

[211] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

of  Nassau  approximates  closely  in  style  to  the  Genoese 
portraits.  It  has  the  same  bold  energy  and  the  same 
freedom  in  rendering  the  self-confident  air  of  the 
original,  and  although  cooler  in  its  general  tone  it 
shows  the  same  juxtaposition  of  a  warm  red  and  a 
steel-blue  that  appears  in  portraits  of  Genoese  generals. 
But  the  drawing  is  now  more  definite  and  decided, 
and  the  more  solidly  constructed  figure  has  a  simpler 
aspect.  The  character  of  the  original,  more  clearly 
revealed,  makes  a  stronger  appeal  to  the  observer. 
Again  the  artist  has  selected  a  pose  in  which  there  are 
contrasts  of  direction,  turning  the  body  and  the  arms 
to  one  side  and  the  head  to  another  as,  to  give  dra- 
matic point  to  the  presentment,  he  did  in  many  of  the 
Genoese  portraits  —  in  Lucas  van  Uffelen's,  for  ex- 
ample, and  the  Marchesa  Cattaneo's.  But  the  turning 
of  the  figure  is  now  managed  in  a  less  arbitrary  fashion ; 
it  is  developed,  so  to  say,  more  from  within,  by  the 
sitter's  own  volition,  as  a  comparison  with  the  military 
portraits  at  Dresden  and  Vienna  may  perhaps  make 
plain. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  portrait  owned  by  Mr.  Bor- 
den is  extremely  simple,  as  simple  in  both  pose  and  colour 
as  it  is  possible  to  imagine  a  picture  by  van  Dyck. 
The  head,  with  the  upper  part  of  the  body,  is  shown  in 
full  face,  the  eyes  turned  quietly  upon  the  spectator; 
the  dress  is  black,  the  background  is  gray,  and  the 
unobtrusive  technique  is  altogether  unlike  the  bold 
broad  handling  in  works  of  the  artist's  early  period. 
Nor  could  he  have  gone  farther  in  eliminating  acces- 
sories so  as  to  concentrate  attention  upon  the  head. 
Yet  even  so  he  manages  to  suggest  an  aristocrat.     Per- 

[212] 


VAN    DYCK,    PORTRAIT    OF   A   GENOESE    LADY 

COLLECTION    OF   MR.    C.    P.    TAFT,    CINCINNATI 


PICTUKES    BY    VAN   DYCK   IN   AMERICA 

sonal  importance  and  high  breeding  are  both  impHed 
by  the  way  in  which  the  figure  is  placed  within  the 
frame,  by  the  wide  sweep  of  the  cloak,  the  small  size 
of  the  head  as  compared  with  the  body,  and  the  languid 
droop  of  the  hand.  The  fact  that  van  Dyck  could 
now  conceal  the  means  by  which  he  achieved  such  a 
result  is  proof  of  the  progress  he  had  made  in  his  art. 

From  the  splendid  portraits  of  the  Genoese  and  the 
cooler  ones  of  the  later  Antwerp  period  we  come  now 
to  those  where  English  courtiers  wear  an  air  of  reserve 
that  is  evidently  theirs  by  nature.  From  the  attractive 
round-faced  and  dark-eyed  types  of  Italy  and  the  strong 
rugged  hneaments  of  Dutchmen  and  Flemings  we  turn 
to  the  beauty  of  thin  faces  with  long  chins  and  blond 
hair. 

The  art  of  van  Dyck  drew  new  Hfe  from  the  new 
land.  Apparently  he  was  one  of  those  unstable  im- 
pressionable beings  who,  to  keep  their  faculties  alert, 
must  seek  every  few  years  the  stimulus  of  a  novel  en- 
vironment. In  a  sort  of  reaction  from  the  gray  mood 
of  his  Antwerp  period  the  pictures  of  his  first  years  in 
England  are  bold  of  aspect,  fresh,  and  full  of  colour. 
A  beautiful  example  of  this  manner,  splendid  by  reason 
of  the  reds  and  yellows  of  the  dress,  is  the  Viscount 
Grandison  owned  by  Mr.  Harry  Payne  Whitney  of 
New  York.  Abandoning  the  complicated  theatrical 
poses  that  he  gave  his  Genoese  nobles,  the  artist,  we 
feel,  is  now  striving  for  a  natural,  seemingly  unstudied 
simplicity  in  accord  with  the  northern  ideal  of  high 
breeding.  In  an  animated  attitude  that  expresses  an 
amiable  romantic  temperament,  the  young  man  stands 
with  one  foot  drawn  back,  doffing  his  feathered  hat  and 

[213] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

turning  his  head  sHghtly  to  one  side  as  though  wait- 
ing for  a  word  from  the  observer. 

Less  fascinating  at  first  sight  but  better  thought-out 
in  respect  to  character  is  the  portrait  of  James  Stuart, 
Duke  of  Richmond  and  Lennox,  in  the  Metropohtan 
Museum  of  Art  at  New  York.  Dating  from  the  middle 
of  van  Dyck's  Enghsh  period,  it  is  one  of  its  very  finest 
products.  Van  Dyck  painted  several  portraits  of  this 
rather  unimportant  looking  but  attractive  friend  and 
courtier  of  Charles  I,  and,  as  the  preparatory  sketches 
show,  he  took  particular  pains  with  the  one  that  now 
concerns  us.  Probably  it  was  only  for  the  head  that  the 
duke  actually  sat  to  him.  A  beautiful  crayon  drawing 
in  the  British  Museum  shows  that  the  dress  with  the 
Order  of  the  Garter  was  sketched  from  another  model; 
and,  indeed,  we  know  that  at  this  time  van  Dyck  was 
often  compelled  to  finish  the  costumes  in  his  portraits 
as  he  might  see  fit.  The  study  for  the  head,  whether 
done  at  once  on  the  large  canvas  or  separately,  he  used 
a  second  time,  with  only  a  few  changes,  in  the  portrait 
of  the  duke  in  the  guise  of  Paris  that  is  now  in  the 
Louvre.  Two  separate  studies  of  the  dog,  also  in  the 
British  Museum,  show  how  cleverly  they  were  combined 
in  the  picture.  In  the  figure  of  the  duke  the  qualities 
of  a  courtier  are  admirably  interpreted.  He  is  not 
handsome  nor  does  he  look  particularly  intelligent,  but 
the  large  dreamy  eyes  and  the  long  fair  curls  that  ac- 
cord so  well  with  the  blue  of  the  Garter  ribbon  give 
him  a  romantic  air,  and  the  fawning  devotion  of  the 
dog  adds  a  touch  of  graciousness  to  the  proud  person- 
ality. Seldom,  in  line,  in  handling,  or  in  sentiment, 
have  a  human  being  and  an  animal  been  so  well  as- 

[  214  ] 


VAN    DYCK,    PORTRAIT    OF   VISCOUNT    GRANDISON 

COLLECTION    OF   MR.    H.    P.    WHITNEY,    NEW    YORK 


PICTURES   BY   VAN   DYCK   IN   AMERICA 

sociated  upon  canvas.  To  the  observer  the  bond  be- 
tween them  seems  to  be  less  the  mutual  affection  of  a 
man  and  a  dog  than  the  qualities  that  they  have  in  com- 
mon as  consummate  representatives  of  their  respective 
species. 

Comparing  this  picture  with  the  Grandison  portrait 
we  learn  how  van  Dyck  expressed  different  tempera- 
ments by  means  of  differences  in  pose  and  contour. 
In  the  Grandison  portrait  the  attitude  is  upright  and 
all  the  lines  fall  into  wide  open  curves.  In  the  portrait 
of  the  duke  the  broken  curves  returning  upon  them- 
selves give  a  suggestion  of  indolence;  the  legs  are  bent 
and  seem  to  advance  but  uncertainly;  everything  be- 
trays a  nonchalant  ease  in  keeping  with  the  tempera- 
ment of  the  aristocratic  Englishman. 

In  conclusion  I  may  note  a  work  of  van  Dyck's  last 
years,  the  portrait  of  Catherine  Howard,  Lady 
d'Aubigny,  owned  by  Mr.  Widener.  In  a  pale-red  silk 
dress,  with  scarcely  any  adornment  excepting  pearls 
on  the  neck  and  shoulders  and  in  the  ears,  the  figure 
floats  by  with  a  tired  indifferent  smile.  The  counte- 
nance, almost  blank  in  its  expression  of  refinement,  its 
air  of  unconcern,  the  pale  diaphanous  figure,  the  affected 
gesture  of  the  extended  arm,  the  fingers  scarcely  able 
to  hold  the  flowers,  all  seem  to  say  that  a  blight  has 
fallen  on  the  great  master's  art.  Painting  means  noth- 
ing more  to  him  now  than  a  thrice-familiar  kind  of 
play.  The  technique  is  facile  and  unobtrusive  and  the 
colour-scheme  as  simple  as  possible  —  a  black  back- 
ground, a  rose-coloured  dress,  and  a  uniformly  pallid 
flesh-tone.  The  expression  of  high  breeding  comes 
naturally  to  the  artist's  brush,  but  his  delight  in  the 

[215] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW    COUNTRIES 

high-bred  world  has  disappeared ;  now  that  he  is  master 
of  its  aspects  it  seems  to  him  lifeless  and  dull.  What  a 
change  since  his  days  in  Genoa!  His  enthusiasm  for 
an  unfamiliar  world  of  splendid  palaces  and  princes  has 
turned  into  a  cool  contemplation  of  lofty  personages 
whom  he  considers  merely  his  equals.  He  had  now 
been  knighted,  he  had  grown  rich,  he  lived  like  a 
prince,  and  made  his  journeys  with  five  servants  in  a 
coach-and-four.  In  Italy  his  fellow-artists  had  laughed 
when  the  title  Cavaliere  was  given  him.  Now  more  than 
one  of  them  sought  the  favour  of  Sir  Anthony  who  had 
become  a  power  in  the  realm  of  art. 

Pitiable  indeed  when  we  think  of  such  a  life  seems 
the  manner  of  its  ending.  Was  it  unnatural  that  van 
Dyck  should  aspire  to  the  highest  walks  of  life?  Did 
not  other  great  artists  have  similar  desires,  fixing  their 
eyes  on  some  princely  circle  and  longing  to  share  in  its 
seductive  pleasures,  which  meant  more  to  the  lowly 
born  than  to  its  own  members.'*  They  were  lucky  if 
they  were  not  fated  to  be  stifled  by  such  an  atmosphere. 
Rembrandt  could  not  accommodate  himself  to  society; 
thrust  back  from  its  portals,  he  withdrew  into  him- 
self to  accomplish  greater  things.  Rubens,  intelligent 
enough  not  to  heed  the  invitations  of  princes  to  attach 
himself  to  their  courts,  remained  within  the  narrow 
bounds  of  his  own  family  circle.  But  the  handsome 
young  van  Dyck  felt  at  home  in  the  company  of  the  rich 
and  followed  them  up  to  all  the  heights  and  into  all 
the  depths  of  pleasure.  His  unsatisfied  soul  found  rest 
at  a  level  where  the  struggle  for  existence  was  unknown. 
Or  was  the  lassitude  that  overcame  him  in  the  prime 
of  life  due,  perhaps,  in  part  to  physical  causes.'*     As  a 

[216] 


VAN   DYCK,   PORTRAIT  OF  THE  DUKE  OF  RICHMOND 
AND   LENNOX 

METROPOLITAN    MUSEUM    OF    ART,    NEW    YORK 


PICTURES   BY    VAN   DYCK   IN    AMERICA 

boy  he  overtaxed  nature  in  working  at  his  art,  and  at  too 
early  an  age  he  won  a  great  success  in  a  foreign  land. 
So  the  restless  spirit  that  impelled  him  to  an  ever- 
increasing  activity  must  all  the  sooner  have  exhausted 
the  overstimulated  body.  Now  it  seemed  as  though 
the  world  were  determined,  in  the  hour  of  his  physical 
weakness,  to  take  revenge  for  his  vaulting  ambition 
upon  the  artist  whom  it  had  favoured  so  long. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  this  great  painter  under  whose 
eye  had  passed  the  cultivated  society  of  a  whole  con- 
tinent and  a  great  epoch,  the  most  distinguished  and 
the  most  patrician  figures  of  contemporary  Europe, 
this  painter  who  had  not  merely  seen  hundreds  of  ar- 
tists and  poets,  scholars  and  diplomats,  generals  and 
princes,  but  had  learned  to  know  them  with  the  intimacy 
possible  to  a  portrait  painter  penetrating  the  souls  of 
his  sitters  —  it  is  no  wonder  that,  after  the  death  of 
Rubens,  van  Dyck  aspired  to  rule  alone  in  the  kingdom 
of  art;  nor  is  it  strange  that,  loving  to  entertain  his 
friends,  he  made  exorbitant  demands  upon  the  purses 
of  the  nobles  who  had  combined  to  spoil  him.  Which 
of  the  great  painters  of  his  time  had  had  such  experi- 
ences as  he?  Not  Frans  Hals  or  Rembrandt;  they 
were  not  of  the  same  social  rank.  Not  Velasquez  who 
confined  himself  to  the  court  of  Spain.  Not  Rubens 
who  was  too  much  occupied  with  his  own  daring  ideas. 
Why,  then,  since  he  stood  at  the  top  in  other  respects, 
should  not  van  Dyck  also  fill  the  place  left  vacant  by 
the  death  of  Rubens.'^  It  is  singular,  perhaps,  that  at 
so  late  a  day  the  ambition  of  an  artist  who  had  painted 
portraits  a  thousand  times  but  large  compositions  only 
once  in  a  while  and  always  under   the  influence  of 

[217] 


THE   ART    OF    THE    LOW   COUNTRIES 

Rubens,  could  deceive  himself  with  regard  to  his  own 
capabilities.  Perhaps  he  felt  that  his  powers  were 
declining,  and  thought  that  a  bold  start  in  a  new  direc- 
tion might  revive  them.  While  he  was  young  he  may 
not  have  been  oppressed  by  the  existence  of  an  artist 
so  much  greater  than  himself  as  Rubens,  although, 
indeed,  it  may  have  been  to  escape  from  his  master's 
dominance  that  he  lived  for  the  most  part  in  foreign 
lands.  But  when  Rubens  died  it  was  very  evident 
that  van  Dyck  had  been  waiting  for  his  high  place, 
for  he  stood  ready  to  gather  up  at  once  all  the  threads 
that  his  master's  hand  let  fall.  Envious  fate,  however, 
was  to  grant  him  no  such  triumph.  As  soon  as  he 
returned  to  Antwerp  to  take  over  the  deserted  studio 
his  difficulties  began.  He  wanted  to  do  everything 
in  his  own  way  and  better  than  it  had  been  done  before. 
His  negotiations  with  Philip  IV  of  Spain,  about  com- 
pleting the  works  that  Rubens  had  commenced,  fell 
through  because  of  his  large  demand  that  he  should  be 
allowed  to  start  everything  afresh.  He  wanted  to 
finish  the  decorations  of  Whitehall  for  Charles  I  — 
another  piece  of  work  that  Rubens  had  begun  —  but 
asked  so  enormous  a  price  that  again  he  got  no  farther. 
Then  he  turned  toward  Paris,  proposing  to  paint  for 
the  court  a  series  of  pictures  even  more  extensive  than 
Rubens'  Medici  series,  but  the  artists  of  France  were 
given  the  preference.  Passionately  he  sought  in  every 
quarter  for  commissions  for  such  historical  or  mytho- 
logical works  as  had  lain  in  Rubens'  province  but  did  not 
lie  in  his  own.  Everywhere  he  was  given  to  understand 
that  his  master  could  not  be  replaced. 

To   these   professional   disappointments   there  were 

[218] 


PICTURES   BY    VAN   DYCK   IN    AMERICA 

added  in  his  latter  years  private  experiences  that  wholly 
undid  him.  Some  of  his  friends,  chief  among  them  Sir 
Kenelm  Digby,  induced  him  to  waste  money  and  un- 
availing strength  upon  alchemistic  experiments.  In 
order  to  check  his  reckless  ways  of  living  King  Charles 
married  him  to  a  lady  of  the  court,  but  the  union  seems 
to  have  been  unhappy.  His  former  mistress,  Marga- 
rethe  Lemon,  pursued  him  with  her  jealousy  and  once, 
it  is  said,  aimed  a  knife-blow  at  his  right  hand,  meaning 
to  put  an  end  to  his  painting.  When  he  returned  to 
London  from  the  fruitless  journeys  prompted  by  his 
desire  to  fill  Rubens'  empty  place  his  health  was  already 
broken.  During  his  last  illness  a  daughter  was  bom 
to  him,  but  in  the  will  that  he  drew  up  shortly  after- 
ward he  provided  less  well  for  her  than  for  an  illegiti- 
mate child.  He  died  at  the  age  of  forty- two,  eighteen 
months  after  the  death  of  Rubens. 


[219] 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 

THE  CHURCH  ARCHITECTURE  OF  THE  NETHERLANDS    IN 
THE    MIDDLE    AGES 

The  chief  authorities  consulted  in  the  preparation  of 
this  article  were: 

Blok,  P.  J.,  Gescliiedenis  van  het  Nederlandsche  Volk. 
Groningen,  1893 — 

Colenbrander,  H.  T.,  De  Belgische  Omwentling.  The 
Hague,  1905. 

Haupt,  Albreclit,  Die  alteste  Baukunst  der  Germanen. 
Leipzig,  1909. 

Hofstede  de  Groot,  C.  P.  Saenredam,  Utrechtsche  Ker- 
ken.     The  Hague,  1899. 

Dehio,  V.  G.,  and  von  Bezold,  G.,  Die  kirchliche  Bau- 
kunst des  Abendlandes.     Stuttgart,  1892, 

de  Boer,  T.,  Various  articles  on  the  Dutch  Farmhouse. 

In  especial  I  am  indebted  to  the  writings  (among 
them  the  privately  printed  Architektonische  Kunst- 
beschowing)  of  C.  H.  Peters,  State  Architect  of  the 
Netherlands,  whose  labours  in  the  investigation  of  the 
mediaeval  architecture  of  Holland  have  been  of  the 
first  importance. 

[223] 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES 

THE  HAARLEM  SCHOOL  OF  PAINTING  IN  THE  FIFTEENTH 

CENTURY 

Our  present  knowledge  of  the  history  of  Early-Dutch 
painting  is  due  in  major  part  to  Dr.  M.  J.  Friedlander. 
It  is  an  achievement  of  which  the  science  of  criticism 
may  well  be  proud,  for  scarcely  anything  that  related 
to  the  Dutch  painters  of  the  fifteenth  century  had  been 
gleaned  from  the  records  and  the  indications  of  van 
Mander  except  in  regard  to  three  or  four  altar-pieces 
by  Dirk  Bouts  and  the  two  panels  by  Geertgen  that 
are  preserved  in  Vienna,  whereas  to-day  we  know  al- 
most a  dozen  painters  of  the  period  and  are  able  to 
follow  in  detail  the  development  of  the  school  through 
the  second  half  of  the  fifteenth  and  into  the  sixteenth 
century.  We  have  quite  a  different  idea  of  such 
masters  as  Dirk  Bouts  and  Geertgen  now  that  about 
thirty  pictures  of  the  one  and  fifteen  of  the  other  are 
known  to  us.  The  credit  for  the  resuscitation  of  one  of 
the  greatest  of  these  early  Dutchmen,  the  Master  of  the 
Virgo  inter  Virgines,  is  due  entirely  to  the  criticism 
that  is  based  upon  questions  of  style,  for  the  literature 
of  his  time,  in  so  far  as  it  has  come  down  to  us,  ap- 
parently makes  no  mention  of  him.  In  the  following 
list  of  the  works  of  the  various  painters  of  the  period, 
where  I  have  always  indicated  the  fact  when  I  have 
not  seen  the  original  of  a  picture,  I  have  adopted  for 
the  most  part  the  conclusions  of  Friedlander  and 
Hulin.  The  scepticism  in  respect  to  these  conclusions 
that  has  been  expressed  (in  the  works  named  below) 
by  VoU  and,  with  regard  to  certain  particulars,  by 
Heiland  and  by  Balet,  has  in  my  opinion  led  to  nothing. 

[224] 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTES 

The  most  important  writings  that  I  have  consulted 
are: 

Friedlander,  M.  J.,  Meisterwerke  der  niederlandischen 
Malerei  des  XV.  and  XVI.    Jahrhunderts  auf  der 
Ausstellung  zu  Briigge.     Munich,  1903. 
Die  Briigger  Leiausstellung  von  1902,  in  the  Reper- 

torium  for  Kunstwissenschaft,  1903. 
Geertgen    tot    Sint   Jans,    in   the   Jahrbuch   der   Klg. 

Preuss.     Kunstsammlungen,  1903. 
Der  Meister  der  Virgo  inter  Virgines,  ibid,  1910. 
Huhn,  J.,  Exposition  Bruges,  1902.     Catalogue  critique. 
Bode,  W.,  Die  Auferweckung  des  Lazarus  von  Albert  van 
Ouwater,    in   Jahrbuch    der    Kgl.    Preuss.     Kunst- 
sammlungen, 1890. 
Diilberg,    F.,    Die    Friihhollander    im    erzbischoflichen 
Museum  in  Utrecht.     Haarlem,  n.d. 
Die  Friihhollander  in  Italien.    Haarlem,  n.d. 
Die  Friihhollander  in  Frankreich.     Haarlem,  n.d. 
Voll,  K.,  Die  altniederlandische  Malerei.     Leipzig,  1906. 
Heiland,  P.,  Dirk  Bouts.     Strassburg,  n.  d.  (Dissertation.) 
Coffin,  A.,  Thierry  Bouts.     Brussels,  1907. 
Balet,  L.,  Der  Friihhollander  Geertgen   tot  Sint  Jans. 

The  Hague,  1910. 
Bodenhausen,  E.  von,  Gerard  David  und  seine  Schule. 

Munich,  1905. 
For  a  list  of  the  works  of  Haarlem  painters  of  the  fifteenth 
century  see  Appendix  I. 

THE    SATIRICAL    WORK   OF    QUENTIN    METSYS 

The  best  treatise  on  Quentin  Metsys  is  Walter 
Cohen's  Studien  zu  Quentin  Metsys  (Bonn,  1904), 
which  I  had  not  yet  seen  when  my  article  was  published 
in  Les  Anciens  Arts  de  Flandres.     Dr.  Friedlander's 

[225  1 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 

essay  upon  the  artist  in  Museum,  1905,  is  an  ad- 
mirable piece  of  characterization.  The  relations  be- 
tween Metsys  and  Durer  will  be  considered  in  detail 
by  Friedlander  and  Jan  Veth  in  their  forthcoming  book 
upon  Durer's  journey  in  the  Netherlands.  My  attempt 
to  attribute  to  Metsys  the  St.  Jerome  in  the  Palazzo 
Rosso  at  Genoa  now  seems  to  me  a  mistake,  and  I  have 
therefore  changed  the  latter  part  of  my  article.  This 
picture,  as  also  a  similar  one  at  Modena,  is  more  in  the 
manner  of  Jan  van  Hemessen. 

Rembrandt's  representations  of  susanna 

I  am  indebted  to  Dr.  Wilhelm  Bode  for  a  knowledge 
of  Eastman's  picture  of  Susanna,  formerly  owned  by 
M.  Paul  Delaroff  of  St.  Petersburg.  When  it  was  ex- 
hibited in  the  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum,  Bode  himself 
discussed  the  representations  of  Susanna  in  the  Amt- 
lichen  Berichten  der  Berliner  Museum  (1910).  In 
Kart  Friese's  excellent  biography  of  Pieter  Lastman 
he  has  spoken  exhaustively  of  the  relation  of  Rem- 
brandt to  his  master.  The  drawing  attributed  to 
Rembrandt  which  was  recently  acquired  by  the  Dres- 
den Print  Room  and  was  published  by  Burcldiardt 
in  the  Jahrbuch  der  kgl.  Preuss.  Kunstsammlungen, 
1912,  seems  to  me  dubious. 

the    works    of   RUBENS    IN   AMERICAN   COLLECTIONS 

For  some  corrections  in  this  article  I  am  indebted 
to  Dr.  G.  Gllick  of  Vienna  and  Dr.  R.  Oldenbourg  of 
Munich. 


[226] 


APPENDICES 


APPENDICES 

I 

WORKS  BY 

PAINTERS  OF  THE  HAARLEM  SCHOOL  OF  THE 

FIFTEENTH  CENTURY 

DIRK  BOUTS 

Altar-pieces 

1.  The  Sacrament.     1464-68.     Louvain,  Church  of  St.  Peter; 

Berlin,  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum;  Munich,  Old  Pinakothek. 

2.  The  Fall  of  the  Damned  into  Hell.     1468-70.     Proba- 

bly a  wing  of  the  altar-piece  with  representations  of  Justice 
that  was  intended  for  Louvain.     Paris,  Louvre. 
S.    Scenes  from  the  Life  of  the  Emperor  Otto  III.     1470-75. 
Two  panels.     Brussels,  Museum. 

4.  St.    Hippolytus.     About    1475.     Bruges,    Church   of  St. 

Sauveur. 

5.  St.  Erasmus.  Louvain,  Church  of  St.  Peter. 

6.  The  Passion.  Granada,  Royal  Chapel. 

7.  The  Passion.  Munich,  Old  Pinakothek;  Nuremberg,  Grer- 

manic  Museum;  Worlitz,  Gothic  House. 

8.  Domestic  Altar  of  the  Snoy  Family,  the  so-called  "Pearl 

of  Brabant."     Munich,  Old  Pinakothek. 

Other  Religious  Pictures 

9.  The  Fountain  of  Life.     Lille,  Museum. 

iO.     The  Entombment.     London,  National  Gallery  (attributed 

to  Rogier  van  der  Weyden). 
11.    The  Lamentation  at  the  Cross.    Paris,  Louvre. 

[229] 


APPENDICES 

12.  The  Baptism  of  Christ.     St.   Petersburg,   Leuchtenberg 

Collection. 

13.  Moses  at  the  Burning  Bush.     Philadelphia,  Johnson  Col- 

lection.    From  the  Rodolphe  Kann  Collection,  Paris. 

14.  Christ  in  the  House  of  Simon.     BerHn,  Kaiser  Friedrich 

Museum  (Thiem  Collection). 

15.  Christ  on  the  Cross.     Berlin,  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum 

(Thiem  Collection). 

16.  The  Nativity.     Fragments.     Berhn,  Kaiser  Friedrich  Mu- 

seum; Frankfort,  Noll  Collection. 

17.  The  Nativity.     Fragment.     Philadelphia,  Johnson  Collec- 

tion. 

Madonnas 

18.  Virgin  Enthroned  with  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.    Loudon, 

National  Gallery. 

19.  Madonna.  Half-length.  Berlin,  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum. 

20.  Madonna.  Half-length.  Florence,  BargeUo. 

21.  Madonna.  Half-length.  Rephca    of    No.    20.    Newport, 

R,  I.,  Davis  Collection. 

22.  Madonna.     HaK-length.  London,  National  Gallery. 

23.  Madonna.     Half-length.  Antwerp,  Museum. 

24.  Madonna.    Half-length.  Antwerp,   Mair  van  den  Bergh 

Collection. 

25.  Madonna.     Half-length.  Sigmaringen. 

26.  Madonna.     Half-length.  Munich,   Pourtales  Collection. 

27.  Madonna.     Half-length.  Prague,  Rudolfinum. 

28.  Madonna.     Half-length.     Copenhagen,  Ny  Carlsberg. 

Portraits 

29.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     1462.     London,  National  Gallery. 

30.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     New  York,  Metropohtan  Museum  of 

Art  (Altman  Collection) .     From  the  Oppenheim  Collection, 

Cologne. 

Nos.  6,  25,  and  26  I  have  not  seen.     The  altar-piece  at  Granada 

(No.  6)  is  universally  accepted,  while  the  pictures  at  Sigmaringen 

(No.  25)  and  in  the  Pourtales  Collection  at  Munich  (No.  26)  have 

been  identified  by  Friedlander. 

[230] 


APPENDICES 

AELBERT  VAN  OUWATER 

The  Raising  of  Lazarus.     Berlin,  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum. 

PICTURES  IN  THE  MANNER  OF  DIRK  BOUTS 

1.  IMadonna  AND  Child  ON  A  Grassy  Bank.  Hay  ward  Heath, 

Stephenson  Clarke  Collection. 

2.  Replica  of  No.  1  with  a  different  background.     Leitmeritz, 

Cathedral. 

3.  The  Raising  of  Lazarus.    Mexico. 

4.  The    Sibyl   and    the    Emperor    Augustus.     Frankfort, 

StUdel  Institute  (attributed  to  Dirk  Bouts). 

5.  The  Marriage  of  the  Virgin.     By  the  same  hand  as  No.  4. 

Philadelphia,  Johnson  Collection. 
Nos.  2  and  3  are  known  to  me  only  in  photographs,  and  through 
Hofstede  de  Groot  (No.  2)  and  Hugo  von  Tschudi  (No.  3). 


GEERTGEN  tot  SINT  JANS 

1.  Holy  Fellowship  (Church  Interior).      Amsterdam,  Rijks 

Museum. 

2.  The  Nativity.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

3.  The  Adoration  of  the  Magi.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

4.  St.  John  the  Baptist.     Berlin,  Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum. 

5.  The  Nativity.     Berlin,  von  Kaufmann  Collection. 

6.  Madonna.    Life-size,  half-length.      Berlin,  von  Hohtscher 

Collection. 

7.  Diptych.     Brunswick,  Gallery. 

8.  Exterior  of  the  Church  of  St.  Bavon.    Haarlem,  Church 

of  St.  Bavon. 

9.  Madonna.     Small  half-length.     Milan,  Ambrosiana. 

10.  The  Raising  of  Lazarus.     Paris,  Louvre. 

11.  The  Adoration  of  the  ^Iagi.     Triptych.     Prague,  Rudolfi- 

num. 

12.  Christ  in  the  Sepulchre.     Utrecht,  Archiepiscopal  Mu- 

seum. 

[231] 


APPENDICES 

13.  PiETA,     Vienna,  Hof  Museum. 

14.  The  Burning  of  the  Bones  of  St.  John  the  Baptist. 

Vienna,  Hof  Museum. 

COPIES  of  lost  works  by  geertgen 

15.  The  Legend  of  St.  Domenick.     London,  Turner  Collection. 

16.  Madonna  and  Saints  in  a  Forest.    Triptych.     London, 

National  Gallery. 
This  is  by  the  Master  of  the  Morrison  Triptych,  to  whom 
Friedlander  rightly  assigns  the  following  works  as  well: 

1.  Triptych.     After  MemUng.     London,  Morrison  Collection. 

2.  The  Adoration  of  the  Magi.     Philadelphia,  Johnson  Col- 

lection. 

3.  Madonna  and  Child.     Half-length.     Nuremberg,  Germanic 

Museum  (attributed  to  Quentin  Metsys). 


PICTURES  IN  THE  MANNER  OF  GEERTGEN 

1.  Portrait  of  the  Burgomaster  of  Schiedam.    Dated  1489. 

Philadelphia,  Johnson  Collection. 

2.  St.  Martin.     Philadelphia,  Johnson  Collection. 

3.  St.  Anne  with  the  Virgin  and  Child.     Schloss  Arensburg 

near  Biickeburg. 

4.  Holy  Family.     Cologne,  Museum. 

5.  Triptych.     Spain.     Published  by  Kjonig  in  Les  Arts. 

This  last  and  the  Morrison  Triptych  I  know  only  in  reproductions. 


PAINTERS   INFLUENCED   BY   GEERTGEN 

the  master  of  the  martyrdom  of  ST.  LUCY 

1.  The  Martyrdom  of  St.  Lucy.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

2.  The  Crucifixion.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

3.  The  Crucifixion.     Utrecht,  Archiepiscopal  Museum. 

4.  The  Descent  from  the  Cross.     Vienna,  Figdor  Collection. 

[232] 


APPENDICES 
GERARD    DAVID    (eARLY   WORKs) 

Here  I  may  refer  the  reader  to  Bodenhausen's  book  and  to  the 
supplement  to  the  Ust  of  works  there  given  in  the  Zeitschrift  fiir 
bildende  Kunst,  1911. 

THE   MASTER   OF   THE   ANTWERP   TRIPTYCH 

1.  The  Madonna  WITH  Saints.    Triptych.    Antwerp,  Museum. 

2.  The  Assumption  of  the  Virgin.    Bonn,  Provincial  Museum. 

3.  The  Virgin  and  St.  Michael.     BerUn,  Kaiser  Friedrich 

Museum. 
The  relationship  between  these  three  pictures  was  first  remarked 
by  Walter  Cohen.  The  records  of  the  city  of  Haarlem  for  the 
year  1500  mention  a  commission  for  an  altar-piece  with  the 
Assumption  of  the  Virgin  in  the  centre  which  had  been  given  to  a 
"son  of  Jan  Mostaert"  by  the  Church  of  St.  Bavon.  This  ref- 
erence may  be  thought  to  indicate  the  picture  now  in  Bonn  but, 
to  judge  by  the  date,  the  artist  was  more  probably  the  father  than 
the  son  of  the  well-known  Jan  Mostaert. 

the  master  of  alkmaar 

1-7.    The  Seven  Works  of  Mercy.      Alkmaar,  Great  Church. 

8,  9.  The  Circumcision  of  Christ;  Christ  in  the  Temple. 

Two  large  panels.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

10.  The  Presentation  in  the  Temple.     Amsterdam,  Rijks 

Museum. 

11.  Christ  in  Limbo.     Prague,  Nostitz  Collection. 

1'2.  The  Martyrdom  of  a  Saint.  Philadelphia,  Johnson  Col- 
lection. 

13.  St,  Anne  with  the  Virgin  and  Child  and  Saints.  New- 
York,  offered  for  sale. 

JAN   mostaert    (supposed    EARLY   WORKS) 

1.  The  Tree  of  Jesse.     Rome,  Stroganoff  Collection. 

2.  The  Sibyl  and  the  Emperor  Augustus.     Antwerp,  Mu- 

seum. 

I  formerly   attributed  this   picture,  probably  without 

[233] 


APPENDICES 

due  warrant,  to  the  Master  of  the  Virgo  inter  Virgines. 
(See  the  catalogue  of  the  Antwerp  Museum.)     The  attri- 
bution to  Jan  Mostaert  is  not  wholly  convincing. 
3.     Triptych  with  a  Pieta  in  the  centre.     A  copy  of  the  picture 
by  Geertgen  now  in  Vienna.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

JACOB   CORNELISZ    (EARLY   WORKS) 

1.  Calvary.     Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum. 

2.  Calvary.     Philadelphia,  Johnson  Collection. 

3.  Calvary.     Vienna,  Liechtenstein  Collection. 

4.  Panel  with  the  Crucifixion  in  the  centre  and  scenes  from  the 

Passion  at  the  sides.     Utrecht,  Archiepiscopal  Museum. 


[234] 


n 

WORKS  BY  RUBENS 
IN  AMERICAN  COLLECTIONS 

1.  St.  Peter.     About  1603-4,      Larchmont,  New  York,  Col- 

lection of  Eugene  Baross. 

2.  The  Crucifixion.     About  1610.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  John  G.  Johnson. 

3.  Paul  and  Barnabas  at  Lystra.     Sketch.     About   1612. 

Philadelphia,  Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

4.  Portrait  of  a  Man  and  His  Wife.     About  1614.    Boston, 

Collection  of  Mrs.  Robert  D.  Evans. 

5.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Man.     Study.     About  1615.     New 

York,  Collection  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

6.  The  Delivery  of  the  Keys  to  St.  Peter.     About  1615. 

New  York,  Collection  of  W.  R.  Bacon. 

7.  Romulus    and    Remus.     Sketch.     About    1615.     Philadel- 

phia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

8.  The  Wolf  AND  Fox  Hunt.     About  1616.    New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art. 

9.  The  Steer  Hunt.     Sketch.     Studio  replica.     About  1616. 

New  York,  Ehrich  &  Co; 

10.  The  Feast  of  the   Gods.     About   1615.     Yonkers,   New 

York,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Samuel  Untermyer. 

11,  12.     Heads  of  Two  of  the  Three  Kings.    Autographic  rep- 

licas of  parts  of  the  altar-piece  at  Mechlin.     About  1618. 
New  York,  Collection  of  Charles  H.  Senff. 

13.  The  Adoration  of  the  Kings.     Sketch  for  the  picture  at 

Munich.     About  1619.     Montreal,  Collection  of  Sir  Wil- 
liam Van  Home. 

14.  The  Emblem   of   Christ    Appearing   to    the   Emperor 

CoNSTANTiNE.     Sketch.     About     1621-22.      Philadelphia, 
Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

[235] 


APPENDICES 

15.  Portrait  of  Ambrogio  Spinola.     About  1625.      Chicago, 

Art  Institute.     From  the  Demidoff  Collection. 

16.  The  same  as  No.  15,  with  alterations.     About  1625.     Chi- 

cago (?),  in  private  ownership. 

17.  Holy  Family.     About  1625.     San  Francisco,  Collection  of 

W.  H.  Crocker.    From  the  Blenheim  Collection. 

18.  The  same  composition  as  No.  17.     According  to  Max  Rooses, 

the  original.     St.  Louis,  Collection  of  Edward  A.  Faust. 

19.  St.  Cecilia.     About  1627.     New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs. 

Henry  O.  Havemeyer. 

20.  Madonna   Adored    by    Saints.     Sketch.     Studio    replica. 

Boston,  Museum  of  Fine  Arts. 

21.  The  Entry  of  Henri  IV  into  Paris.     Sketch.     About  1629. 

New  York,  Collection  of  John  W.  Simpson. 

22.  Portrait  of  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel.     About 

1630.     Boston,  Collection  of  Mrs.  John  L.  Gardner. 

23.  Portrait  of  Heliodoro  de  Barrera,     About  1630.     New 

York,  Collection  of  Frederick  T.  Fleitmann. 

24.  Abraham  and  Melchisedek.     Study.     From  a  series  of  de- 

signs   for    tapestries.     Studio    replica.     About    1626-28. 
Philadelphia,  Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

25.  The  Triumph  of  the  Sacrament  over  Folly.     From  the 

same    series.     Studio    replica.     Cleveland,    Collection   of 
J.  H.  Wade. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  A.  F.  Jaccacci  for  calling  my  at- 
tention to  this  study  which  I  have  not  seen. 

26.  The  Family  of  Rubens.     Sketch.     About  1630.     Philadel- 

phia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson.     Formerly  owned  by 
Lord  Darnley. 

27.  Thetis  Dipping  the  Young  Achilles  in  the  Styx.     From 

a  series  of  designs  for  tapestries.     About  1630-35.     New 
York,  Collection  of  John  E.  Stillwell. 

28.  Achilles  Among  the  Daughters  of  Lycomedes.     Study. 

From  the  same  series.    School  replica.    Philadelphia,  Fair- 
mount  Park  Museum  (Willstach  Collection). 

29.  Achilles   and   Briseis.     Study.     From   the   same   series. 

Studio  replica.     New  York,  Collection  of  Jacob  H.  Schiff. 

[236] 


APPENDICES 

30.  D^DALUS  AND  IcARUs.     Sketch.     About   1635.     Philadel- 

phia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

31.  The  Wounded  Stag.     Sketch.     About  1635.     Philadelphia, 

Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

32.  The  Intercession  of  St.  Theresa.     Studio  replica.     About 

1633-35.     New  York,  Collection  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

33.  Portrait    of   Ferdinand,    Cardinal-Infante   of   Spain. 

About  1635.     New  York,  Collection  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan. 

34.  Portrait  of  a  Lady  in  Black.      About  1635.      Baltimore, 

Collection  of  Henry  B.  Jacobs. 

35.  Apollo  and  the  Muses.     About  1638.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  William  A.  Clark. 

36.  The  Rape  of  the  Sabines.     Sketch.     About  1638.     Phila- 

delphia, Collection  of  P.A.B.  Widener. 

37.  The  Return  of  the  Sabines.    Sketch.    About  1638.    Phila- 

delphia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

38.  Two  Cows.     About   1635-40.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of 

John  G.  Johnson. 

39.  Landscape.     About    1635-40.     Philadelphia,    Collection    of 

John  G.  Johnson. 

40.  Landscape  with  Figures  of  Philemon  and  Baucis.    Study 

for  the  picture  in  the  Hof  Museum  at  Vienna.    About  1638- 
40.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

41.  Holy  Family.     About  1635-40.     New  York,  Metropolitan 

Museum  of  Art. 

42.  The  Stag  Hunt.    In  collaboration  with  Snyders  and  Wildens. 

About  1638.     New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs.   Benjamin 
Thaw. 


[237] 


Ill 

WORKS  BY  VAN  DYCK 
IN  AMERICAN  COLLECTIONS 

EARLY  WORKS 

1.  St.  Bartholemew.     About  1616.     Replica  of  the  pictures  in 

Dresden  and  at  Althorp  House.     Boston,  Collection  of 
F.  G.  Macomber. 

2.  The  Apostle  Judas.     About  1616.     Norristown,  Pennsyl- 

vania, Collection  of  Mr.  Charles  F.  Williams. 

3.  Old  :Man.     Study  head.     About  1616.     Philadelphia,  Col- 

lection of  John  G.  Johnson. 

4.  The  Repentant  INL^^gdalene.     About  1616-18.     Philadel- 

phia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson. 

5.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     New  York,  Metropolitan  Museum  of 

Art.     From  Lord  Methuen's  collection. 

6.  Portrait  OF  A  WoAL\.N.     About  1618-20.    New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art. 

7.  Family  Portrait:  Man,  Woman,  and  Child  on  a  Veran- 

dah.    About   1618-20.     Baltimore,   Collection    of   Henry 
B.  Jacobs. 

8.  Portrait  of  Nicholas  Rockox.     About  1620.     Baltimore, 

Collection  of  Henry  B.  Jacobs. 

9.  Portrait  of  Frans  Snyders.     About  1620.     New  York, 

Collection  of  Henry  C.  Frick. 

10.  Portrait  of  the  Wife  of  Frans  Snyders.     About  1620. 

New  York,  Collection  of  Henry  C.  Frick. 

11.  Portrait  of  a  Lady.     1622.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of 

John  G.  Johnson.     Attributed  also  to  Cornells  de  Vos. 

[238] 


APPENDICES 
genoese  period.     1621-26 

12.  Portrait    of    Elena    Grimaldi,    Marciiesa    Cattaneo. 

About  1623.  Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener. 
From  the  Palazzo  Cattaneo. 

13.  Portrait  of  Clelia  Cattaneo,  Daughter  of  Elena  Grimaldi. 

1623.  Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  From 
the  Palazzo  Cattaneo. 

14.  Portrait  of  Filippo  Cattaneo,  Son  of  Elena  Grimaldi. 

1623.  Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  From 
the  Palazzo  Cattaneo. 

15.  Portrait  of  the  Mahchesa  Giovanna  Cattaneo,  Daughter 

of  Giovanni  Battista  Cattaneo.  New  York,  Collection  of 
Henry  C.  Frick.     From  the  Palazzo  Cattaneo. 

16.  Portrait  of  Canevari.     New  York,  Collection  of  Henry  C. 

Frick.     From  the  Palazzo  Cattaneo. 

17.  Portrait  of  AN  Old  Lady.     Yonkers,  New  York,  Collection 

of  Mrs.  Samuel  Untermyer.     From  the  Palazzo  Cattaneo. 

18.  Portrait  of  Paola  Adorno,  Majichesa  Brignole-Sala. 

Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P  .  A.  B.  Widener.  From  the 
Earl  of  Warwick's  Collection. 

19.  The  same  as  No,  18.    New  York,  Collection  of  Henry  C.  Frick. 

From  the  Duke  of  Abercorn's  collection. 

20.  Portrait  of  the  Marchese  Gian  Vincenzo  Imperiale. 

1625.  Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  For- 
merly owned  by  the  Marchese  Cesare  Imperiale  of  Te- 
nalba. 

21.  Portrait  of  a  General  in  Armour.     Philadelphia,  Collec- 

tion of  P.  A.  B.  Widener. 

22.  Portrait  of  the  Marchesa  Durazzo.     New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  From  the 
Rodolphe  Kann  Collection,  Paris. 

23.  Portrait  of  Lucas  van  Uffelen.     New  York,  Metropolitan 

Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  From  the  Duke  of 
Sutherland's  collection. 

24.  Portrait  of  a  Lady  of  Rank.     Cincinnati,  Collection  of 

Charles  P.  Taft. 

[239] 


APPENDICES 

25.  Portrait  of  the  Dogaressa  Antonia  Lercari  (?).  Proba- 

bly a  studio  replica  of  the  portrait  of  the  Marchesa  Cat- 
taneo  in  the  National  Gallery  at  London.  Montreal, 
Collection  of  James  Ross.  Formerly  owned  by  the  Mar- 
chese  Imperiali-Coccapani  of  Modena. 

26.  Holy  Family:   The  Virgin  with  the  Child,  St.  Joseph, 

AND  THE  Infant  John  the  Baptist.  New  York,  Collec- 
tion of  Mrs.  Henry  E.  Huntington.  A  school  copy  is  in  the 
Palazzo  Doria  at  Genoa  and  was  reproduced  by  M.  Menotti 
in  Archivio  Storice  dell'arte,  1897. 

27.  Mater  Dolorosa.     Head  in  profile.  Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  John  G.  Johnson. 

28.  The  Marriage  of  St.  Catherine.     Chicago,  Collection  of 

A.  A.  Sprague. 

29.  The  Assumption  of  the  Virgin.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  From  the  Hope  Collection,  Deep- 
dene. 

SECOND  ANTWERP   PERIOD.      1626-31 

30.  Portrait  of  a  Gentleman,  presumably  Le  Roy.   New  York, 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art. 

31.  Portrait  of  a  Guitar-player.     New  York,  Collection  of 

Jacob  H.  Schiff. 

32.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     Probably  the  engraver  Schelte  a  Bols- 

wert.  (Compare  the  engraving  by  Adriaen  Lommelin 
after  van  Dyck.)  New  York  (. 5^),  Recently  in  the  collection 
of  the  late  M.  C.  D.  Borden. 

33.  Portrait  of  Anna  Maria  de  Schodt.     Boston,  Museum  of 

Fine  Arts.  According  to  Bode,  perhaps  by  Cornells  de 
Vos. 

34.  Portrait  of  a  Knight  of  the  Golden  Fleece.    New  York, 

New  York  Historical  Society. 

35.  Portrait  of  a  Gentleman.    New  York,  Collection  of  John 

W.  Simpson. 

36.  Portrait  of  a  Lady.     Cincinnati,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Thomas 

J.  Emery. 

37.  Portrait  of  Helene  du  Bois.     Chicago,  Art  Institute. 

[UO] 


APPENDICES 

38.  Portrait  of  a  Lady.     Grisaille.     Boston,  Collection  of  F.  G. 

Macomber. 

39.  The    Crucifixion.     Sketch.     Philadelphia,    Collection    of 

John  G.  Johnson. 

ENGLISH   PERIOD.       1632-40 

40.  Portrait  of  John  Villiers,  Viscount  Grandison,    New 

York,  Collection  of  Harry  Payne  Whitney. 

41.  Portrait  of  Graf  Johann  von  Nassau-Liegen.     About 

1634.     Cincinnati,  Collection  of  IVIrs.  Thomas  J.  Emery. 
From  the  Ashburton  collection. 

42.  Portrait   of  Jajvies  Stuart,   Duke  of    Richmond    and 

Lennox.    New  York,  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art.    From 
Lord  Methuen's  collection. 

43.  Portrait  of  a  Lady.     Boston,  Collection  of  Mrs.  John  L. 

Gardner.     Formerly  owned  by  the  Duke  of  Ossuna  of 
Madrid. 

44.  Portrait  of  Catherine  Howard,  Lady  d'Aubigny.     Phila- 

delphia, Collection  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.     From  the  Earl  of 
Clarendon's  collection. 

45.  Portrait  of  George  Hay,  Earl  of  Kinnoul.     New  York, 

Knoedler  &  Co.     From  the  Earl  of  Clarendon's  collection. 

46.  Portrait  of  the  Earl  of  Derby  with  His  Wife  and 

Daughter.     New  York,  Knoedler  &  Co.     From  the  Earl 
of  Clarendon's  collection. 

47.  48.     Portraits  of  Two  Lord  Herberts.     New  York,  Col- 

lection of  William  A.  Clark. 
49.     Portrait  of  the  Countess  of  Rivers  and  Her  Sister, 
Elizabeth  Thimbleby.     Studio  replica  of  the  picture  in 
Lord  Spencer's  collection,  Althorp  House.     Baltimore,  Col- 
lection of  Henry  B.  Jacobs. 


[241] 


IV 

WORKS  BY  REMBRANDT 
IN  AMERICAN  COLLECTIONS 

The  references  to  publications  in  the  following  lists  are  chiefly 
to  Wilhelm  Bode,  assisted  by  C.  Hofstede  de  Groot,  The  Complete 
Work  of  Rembrandt,  Paris,  1902  (which  is  cited  simply  as  Bode) , 
and  to  W.  R.  Valentiner,  Rembrandt,  in  the  series  called  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  Stuttgart,  3d.  edition,  1909  (which  is  cited  as  Klassiker 
der  Kunst).  In  the  case  of  recently  discovered  pictures,  not  men- 
tioned in  these  works,  reference  is  made  to  other  books  or  periodi- 
cals in  which  they  are  reproduced.  The  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition 
Catalogue  is  the  catalogue  of  the  loan  collection  of  Dutch  works  of 
art  exhibited  in  New  York,  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  in 
1909. 

1.  Balaam.     1626.     New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Ferdinand 

Hermann.  Pub.:  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  3;  Bode  in  Art  in 
America,  1913,  3. 

2.  Portrait  of  the  Artist.     About  1628.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan.  Pub. :  Hudson-Fulton  Exhi- 
bition Catalogue,  74;  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze  Kunst, 
1912. 

3.  Portrait  OF  THE  Artist.     1629.     Boston,  Collection  of  Mrs. 

John  L.  Gardner.  Pub.:  Bode,  18;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
31. 

4.  The  Father  of  Rembrandt.     About  1629.     Boston,  Mu- 

seum of  Fine  Arts.  Pub.:  Bode,  543;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
43. 

5.  Study  of  a  Turk.     About  1629.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  John  G.  Johnson.  Pub. :  Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Col- 
lection, 473. 

[242] 


APPENDICES 

6,  Portrait  of  Rembrandt's  Father.    About  1630.     Chicago, 

Collection  of  Mrs.  L.  Kimball.  Pub.:  Bode,  Zeitschrift 
fur  bildende  Kunst,  1912,  210.  The  original  of  the  replica 
published  in  Bode,  29,  and  in  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  44. 

7,  8.    Two  Studies  of  Rembrandt's  Father.     About  1630. 

Philadelphia,  Collection  of  John  D.  McIUienny.     Not  yet 
published. 
9.     Portrait   of   the   Artist.     1631.    Toledo,    Collection   of 
Edward    D.    Libbey.     Pub.:    Klassiker    der    Kunst,    33; 
Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  75. 

10.  Portrait  of  the  Artist.     1631.     Chicago,  Collection  of 

Frank  G.  Logan.  Pub.:  Bode,  548;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
49;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  76, 

11.  Portrait  of  Nicholas  Ruts.     1631.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan.  Pub. :  Bode,  51 ;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  66;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  77. 

12.  Portrait  of  a  Young  IVIan.     About  1631.     New  York,  Col- 

lection of  Frederick  T.  Fleitmann.  Pub.:  Bode,  559; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  67. 

13.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     About  1632,     New  York,  New  York 

Historical  Society.  Pub. :  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze  Kunst, 
1909;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  84. 

14.  Portrait  of  a  Turk.     1632.     New  York,  Collection  of  Wil- 

liam K.  Vanderbilt.  Pub. :  Bode,  145 ;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
145;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  79. 

15.  St.  John  the  Baptist.     1632.     New  York,  Collection  of  the 

late  Charles  Stewart  Smith.  Pub.:  Bode,  134;  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  113;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  80. 

16.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     1632.     New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs. 

Henry  O.  Havemeyer.  Pub.:  Bode,  73;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  78. 

17.  Portrait  of  a  Man  of  the  van  Beresteyn  Family.     1632. 

New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Henry  O.  Havemeyer.  Pub, : 
Bode,  82;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  74. 

18.  Portrait  OF  A  Woman  OF  the  van  Beresteyn  Family,  1632. 

New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Henry  O.  Havemeyer,  Pub, : 
Bode,  83;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  75. 

[243] 


APPENDICES 

19.  Portrait  of  a  IVIan.     1632.    New  York,  Collection  of  James 

W.Ellsworth.  Pub.:  Bode,  81;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  82; 
Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  78. 

20.  Portrait  of  a  Musician.     1633.     New  York,  Collection  of 

Senator  William  A.  Clark.  Pub. :  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze 
Kunst,  1912. 

21.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Man.     1633.     Cincinnati,  Collection 

of  Charles  P.  Taft.  Pub. :  Bode,  100;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
96. 

22.  Portrait  of  a  Woman.     1633.     New  York,  Metropolitan 

Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode,  561; 
EJassiker  der  Kunst,  98. 

23.  The  Timorous  Disciples  in  the  Storm.     1633.     Boston, 

Collection  of  IVirs.  John  L.  Gardner.  Pub.:  Bode,  120; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  162. 

24.  Portrait  OF  Saskia.    About  1633.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  Pub.:  Bode,  153;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  129;    Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  81. 

25.  Portrait  of  a  Young  jNIan.     About  1633.    New  York,  Col- 

lection of  the  late  Mrs.  Morris  K.  Jesup.  Pub. :  Bode,  90; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  90;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Cata- 
logue, 82. 

26.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Woman.     About  1633.     New  York, 

Collection  of  the  late  Mrs.  Morris  K.  Jesup.  Pub. :  Bode, 
91;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  91;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition 
Catalogue,  83. 

27.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     1634.     Boston,  Museum  of  Fine  Arts. 

Pub.:  Bode,  111;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  201. 

28.  Portrait  of  a  Woman.     1634.     Boston,  Museum  of  Fine 

Arts.     Pub.:  Bode,  112;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  201. 

29.  The  Finding  of  Moses.     About  1635.     Philadelphia,  Col- 

lection of  John  G.  Johnson.  Pub.:  Bode,  195;  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  167;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  86; 
Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Collection,  474. 

30.  Study  of  an  old  IVIan.     1635.     New  York,  Collection  of 

W.  b.  Leeds.  Pub.:  Bode,  104;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
190. 

[244] 


APPENDICES 

31.  Portrait  of  a  Rabbi.     About  1635.     Tuxedo  Park,  Collec- 

tion of  Ambrose  Monell.  Pub.:  Bode,  202;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  187. 

32.  Portrait    of   an    Elderly   Woman.     1635.     New   York, 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection) .  Pub.: 
Bode,  224;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  224. 

33.  Portrait  of  Saskia.     1635.     New  York,  Collection  of  S.  R. 

Bertron.     Pub.:  Bode,  154;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  130. 

34.  Portrait  of  Saskia.     1636.     Pittsburg,  Collection  of  Mrs. 

A.  M.  Byers.     Pub.:  Bode,  156;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  132. 

35.  The  Slaughtered  Ox.     1637.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of 

John  G.  Johnson.  Pub.:  Bode,  575;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
230;  Hudson-Fulton  Exliibition  Catalogue,  87;  Catalogue 
of  the  Johnson  Collection,  475. 

36.  Study  of  a  IVIan.     About  1643-5.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  John  G.  Johnson.  Pub. :  Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Col- 
lection, 476. 

37.  Portrait  of  an  Elderly  Man.     1638.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  Philip  Lehman.  Pub.:  Bode,  273;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  252. 

38.  Landscape  with  an  Obelisk.     About  1638.     Boston,  Col- 

lection of  Mrs.  John  L.  Gardner.  Pub.:  Bode,  230;  Klas- 
siker der  Kunst,  231. 

39.  Portrait  of  Herman  Doomer  (known  as  "Rembrandt's 

Gilder  ") .  1640.  New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Henry  O. 
Havemeyer.  Pub.:  Bode,  175;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  88. 

40.  Portrait  of  an  old  Woman.     1640.     New  York,  Collection 

of  Mrs.  Henry  O.  Havemeyer.  Pub.:  Bode,  278;  Klas- 
siker der  Kunst,  256;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue 
89. 

41.  Portrait    of    a    Man.     1641.     New    York,    Metropolitan 

Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode,  277; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  264. 

42.  The  Toilet  of  Bathsheba.     1643.     New  Yorl^,  Metropoli- 

tan Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection) .  Pub. :  Bode,  246 ; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  228. 

[245] 


APPENDICES 

43.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     1643.     New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs. 

Henry  O.  Havemeyer.  Pub.:  Bode,  286;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  270. 

44.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Man.     1643.     New  York,  Collection 

of  Mrs.  Henry  O.  Havemeyer.  Pub. :  W.  Bode,  266;  Klas- 
siker der  Kunst,  271. 

45.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Woman.     1643.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  Mrs.  Henry  O.  Havemeyer.  Pub.:  Bode,  267; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  271. 

46.  Portrait  of  a  Jew.     Study.     About    1643-45.     Philadel- 

phia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson.  Pub.:  Bode,  579; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  356;  Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Col- 
lection, 477. 

47.  Portrait    of   a    Man.     1644.     New   York,    Metropolitan 

Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode,  271; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  273. 

48.  A  Girl  Behind  a  Door.     1645.     Chicago,  Art  Institute. 

Pub.:  Bode,  301;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  323;  Hudson- 
Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  91. 

49.  Portrait  of  the  Artist.     About  1645.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  H.  L.  Terell.  Pub. :  Bode,  260;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
316;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  90. 

50.  Study  of  an  old  IVIan  (King  Saul).     About  1645.     Boston, 

Collection  of  Quincy  A.  Shaw.  Pub. :  Bode,  578;  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  363. 

51.  A  Girl  SHOW^NG  a  Medal.     About  1645.     Cincinnati,  Col- 

lection of  Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Emery.  Pub. :  Bode,  303;  Klas- 
siker der  Kunst,  321. 

52.  Study  of  an  old  Man.     About  1645.     Philadelphia,  Collec- 

tion of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  Pub. :  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze 
Kunst,  1909. 

53.  Christ  on  the  Cross.     Sketch.     About   1646.     Philadel- 

phia, Collection  of  John  G.  Johnson.  Pub.:  Bode,  518; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  246;  Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Col- 
lection, 478.  Original  of  the  old  copy  in  the  collection  of 
Leon  Bonnat.  Pub.:  Bode,  318;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
286. 

f  246  ] 


APPENDICES 

54.  Portrait  of  a  Painter  (Jan  van  Cappelle?).     1647.     New 

York,  Collection  of  Henry  C.  Frick.  Pub.:  Bode,  365; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  345. 

55.  The  Mill.     About  1650.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P.  A. 

B.  Widener.     Pub,:  Bode,  345;   Klassiker  der  Kunst,  313. 

56.  The  Philosopher.     About  1650.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  Pub.:  Bode,  582;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  365;    Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  96. 

57.  Portrait  of  an  old  Man.     1650.     New  York,  Collection  of 

George  J.  Gould.  Pub.:  Bode,  376;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
366;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  95. 

58.  Portrait  of  the  Artist.     1650.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  Pub.:  Bode,  346;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  319;    Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  94. 

59.  Study  of  an  old  Man.     About  1651.     New  York,  Collec- 

tion of  Michael  Friedsam.  Pub.:  A.  Dayot,  Grands  et 
Petits  Maitres  Hollandais  (Paris,  1911),  135. 

60.  Portrait  of  an  old   Woman.     1652.     Cincinnati,  Collec- 

tion of  Charles  P.  Taft.  Pub.:  Bode,  584;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  349. 

61.  Virgil  (?)     1653.     New  York,  Collection  of  Mrs.  Henry  E. 

Huntington.  Pub.:  Bode,  385;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  426; 
Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  97. 

62.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Man.    About  1654  (according  to  Bode, 

1665).  New  York,  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art.  Pub.: 
Bode,  495;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  507;  Hudson-Fulton 
Exhibition  Catalogue,  107. 

63.  The   Woman   Taken   in   Adultery.     About   1654.     Min- 

neapolis, Collection  of  T.  B.  Walker.  Pub.:  Bode,  338; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  537;  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze  Kunst, 
1912. 

64.  The  Polish  Rider.     About  1655.     New  York,  Collection  of 

Henry  C.  Frick.  Pub.:  Bode,  466;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
435. 

65.  Portrait  of  Titus.     1655.     New  York,  Metropolitan  Mu- 

seum of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode,  442;  Klas- 
siker der  Kunst,  413. 

[247] 


APPENDICES 

66.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Artist.  About  1655.  New  York, 
Collection  of  J.  Pierpont  Morgan.  Pub. :  Bode,  364;  Klas- 
siker  der  Kunst,  346;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Cata- 
logue, 93. 

ij7.  Portrait  of  a  Jew.  About  1655.  Philadelphia,  Collection 
of  John  G.  Johnson.  According  to  Bredius  and  Hofstede  de 
Groot,  possibly  by  Karel  Fabritius.  Pub.:  Bode,  473; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  431;  Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Col- 
lection, 479. 

68.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     1655.     Montreal,  Collection  of  James 

Ross.     Pub. :  Bode,  448 ;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  433 ;  Hudson- 
Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  99. 

69.  Portrait  of  an  old  Man.     About  1655.     Washington,  Col- 

lection of  W.  A.  Slater.     Pub.:  Bode,  470;   Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  431;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  100. 

70.  Christ.     Bust.     1656.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of  John  G. 

Johnson.     Pub.:  Bode,  412;    Klassiker  der  Kunst,  390; 
Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Collection,  480. 

71.  The  Sibyl.     About   1656.     Newijort,  R.   I.,  Collection  of 

Theodore   M.   Davis.     Pub.:   Bode,   528;    Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  386;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  101. 

72.  St.  Paul.     About  1656.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P.  A.  B. 

Widener.     Pub.:  Bode,  382;   Klassiker  der  Kunst,  384. 

73.  Portrait  of  Hendrickje  Stoffels.     About   1656.     New 

York,  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection). 
Pub.:  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze  Kunst,  1909. 

74.  Study  of  an  old  Woman.     1657.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.     Pub.:  Bode,  472;    Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  440. 

75.  Portrait  of  a  Jew.     About  1657.     New  York,  Collection  of 

Otto  H.  Kahn.    Pub. :  Bode,  407;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  388. 

76.  Jupiter  and  Mercury.     1658.     New  York,  Collection  of 

Otto  H.  Kahn.     Pub.:  Bode,  407;    Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
388. 

77.  Portrait  of  the  Artist.     1658.     New  York,  Collection  of 

Henry  C.  Frick.     Pub.:  Bode,  428;    Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
400;   Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  102. 

[248] 


APPENDICES 

78.  WoiviAN  TRI^rlVIING  Her  Nails.     1658.     New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode, 
477;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  444. 

79.  Portrait  of  Titus  (so-called  Portrait  of  the  Auctioneer, 

Haring).  1658.  New  York,  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode,  458;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  417. 

80.  Portrait    of    a    Man.     1659.     Rochester,    Collection    of 

George  Eastman.  Pub.:  Bode,  461;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
447. 

81.  Portrait  of  a  Young  Man.     About  1660.     Rochester,  Col- 

lection of  George  Eastman.     Pub.:  Bode,  455;  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  491. 

82.  Hendrickje   Stoffels.     1660.     New   York,    Collection   of 

Mrs.  Henry  E.  Huntington.  Pub.:  Bode,  438;  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  411. 

83.  Portrait  of  the  Artist.     About  1660.     New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode, 
429;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  411. 

84.  Portrait  of  a  Jew.     1661.     Montreal,  Collection  of   Sir 

William  Van  Home.  Pub.:  Bode,  509;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  498. 

85.  Head  of  AN  OLD  Man.     Study.     About  1661.     Philadelphia, 

Collection  of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  Pub.:  Bode,  592;  Klas- 
siker der  Kunst,  455. 

86.  Pilgrim   at  Prayer.     1661.     Toledo,   Collection   of  John 

N.  Willis.  Pub.:  Bode,  485;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
457. 

87.  The  Circumcision.     1661.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of  P. 

A.  B.  Widener.  Pub.:  Bode,  518;  Klassiker  der  Kunst, 
465. 

88.  Portrait  of  a  Man.     About  1662.     Philadelphia,  Collection 

of  P.  A.  B.  Widener.  Pub.:  Bode,  487;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  500. 

89.  Portrait  of  an  old  Man  (Dirk  van  Os).     About   1662. 

Boston,  Collection  of  Frederick  O.  Sears.  Pub. :  Bode,  494; 
Klassiker  der  Kunst,  501. 

[249] 


APPENDICES 

00,  The  Accountant.  About  1663.  New  York,  Collection  of 
Charles  M.  Schwab.  Pub.:  Bode,  526;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  502;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  104, 

91.  Portrait  of  an  Elderly  Man.     1665.     New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art.  Pub.:  Bode,  496;  Klassiker 
der  Kunst,  506;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue, 
106. 

92.  Pilate  Washing  His  Hands.     About  1665.     New  York, 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection) .  Pub, : 
Bode,  532;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  468. 

93.  Portrait  of  Magdalena  van  Loo,  Wife  of  Titus.     About 

1666.  Montreal,  Collection  of  R,  B.  Angus.  Pub. :  Bode, 
537;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  486, 

94.  Portrait  of  Titus  (?),     About  1668,     New  York,  Metro- 

politan Museum  of  Art  (Altman  Collection).  Pub.:  Bode, 
535;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  482;  Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition 
Catalogue,  107A. 

95.  Portrait  of  IVIagdalena  van  Loo,  Wife  of  Titus  (.'').    About 

1668.  New  York,  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  (Altman 
Collection).  Pub,:  Bode,  536;  Klassiker  der  Kunst,  483; 
Hudson-Fulton  Exhibition  Catalogue,  107B. 

Opinions  differ  in  regard  to  the  authenticity  of  the  following 
])aintings: 

1.  An  Artist  in  His  Studio.     (Portrait  of  Rembrandt  him- 

self?) Possibly  an  early  work  of  about  1626,  New  York, 
Collection  of  William  M,  Chase.     Not  yet  published. 

2.  The  Blind  Tobias  and  His  Wife,     Possibly  an  early  work 

of  1626,  Engraved  by  W,  de  Leeuw  in  the  time  of  Rem- 
brandt, Accepted  by  Bredius.  Philadelphia,  Collection 
of  John  G.  Johnson.  Pub. :  Catalogue  of  the  Johnson  Col- 
lection, 482. 

3.  The  Resurrection  of  Lazarus,     About  1632,     New  York, 

Collection  of  W,  Gates,  Pub,:  Bode,  45;  Klassiker  der 
Kunst,  12,  A  better  example  is  in  the  possession  of  Charles 
Sedelmeyer  of  Paris, 

[250] 


APPENDICES 

4.  St.  Francis  at  Prayer.     Philadelphia,  Collection  of  John 

G.  Johnson,  From  the  Due  d'Orleans  Collection.  Pub.: 
Smith,  Catalogue  Raisomie,  133.  An  almost  identical 
picture,  dated  1637,  is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Otto  Beit 
of  London.     Pub. :  Bode,  218. 

5.  Landscape.     1639.     Montreal,    Collection    of   Sir   William 

Van  Home.      Pub.:  Hofstede  de  Groot,  Onze  Kunst,  1909. 

A  statistical  comparison  of  the  sales  of  paintings  by  Rembrandt 
in  different  countries  within  the  last  few  years  shows  the  propor- 
tion to  be  as  follows :  America  has  added  to  its  possessions  thirty- 
four  paintings  —  thirty-two  by  acquisition,  two  by  discovery  — 
and  has  lost  two ;  Germany  has  added  eleven  —  ten  by  acquisition, 
one  by  discovery  —  and  has  lost  four;  England  has  added  eight 
—  two  by  acquisition,  six  by  discovery  —  and  has  lost  twenty. 
France  has  added  three  —  two  by  acquisition,  one  by  discovery  — 
and  has  lost  eighteen.  This  shows  that  America  is  far  ahead  in  the 
number  of  its  acquisitions  as  compared  with  other  countries,  and 
that  Germany  comes  next  while  England  and  France  have  suffered 
most  from  the  loss  of  masterpieces  by  Rembrandt. 


[  251  1 


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